“Where did you pick that up?”
“I see it before me, now.”
“Why, dash it, man, that is what my mother always wore! D’you tell me you can see her?”
“No, she is gone.”
“What was she like? What was she doing?”
“She was your mother. She said so. She was weeping.”
“Weeping! My mother! Why, she is in heaven if ever a woman was. They don’t weep in heaven!”
“Not in the imaginary heaven. They do in the real heaven. It is only we who ever make them weep. She left a message.”
“Give it to me!”
“The message was: ‘Oh, Jack! Jack! you are drifting ever further from my reach’”
The man made a contemptuous gesture.
“I was a damned fool to let you have my name when I made the appointment. You have been making inquiries. You don’t take me in with your tricks. I’ve had enough of it — more than enough!”
For the second time that morning the door was slammed by an angry visitor.
“He didn’t like his message.” Linden explained to his wife. “It was his poor mother. She is fretting over him. Lord! If folk only knew these things it would do them more good than all the forms and ceremonies.”
“Well, Tom, it’s not your fault if they don’t,” his wife answered. “There are two women waiting to see you. They have not an introduction but they seem in great trouble.”
“I’ve a bit of a headache. I haven’t got over last night. Silas and I are the same in that. Our night’s work finds us out next morning. I’ll just take these and no more, for it is bad to send anyone sorrowin’ away if one can help it.”
The two women were shown in, both of them austere figures dressed in black, one a stern-looking person of fifty, the other about half that age.
“I believe your fee is a guinea,” said the elder, putting that sum upon the table.
“To those who can afford it,” Linden answered. As a matter of fact, the guinea often went the other way.
“Oh yes, I can afford it,” said the woman. “I am in sad trouble and they told me maybe you could help me.”
“Well, I will if I can. That’s what I am for.”
“I lost my poor husband in the war — killed at Ypres he was. Could I get in touch with him?”
“You don’t seem to bring any influence with you. I get no impression. I am sorry but we can’t command these things. I get the name Edmund. Was that his name?”
“No.”
“Or Albert?”
“No.”
“I am sorry, but it seems confused — cross vibrations, perhaps, and a mix-up of messages like crossed telegraph wires.”
“Does the name Pedro help you?”
“Pedro! Pedro! No, I get nothing. Was Pedro an elderly man?”
“No, not elderly.”
“I can get no impression.”
“It was about this girl of mine that I really wanted advice. My husband would have told me what to do. She has got engaged to a young man, a fitter by trade, but there are one or two things against it and I want to know what to do.”
“Do give us some advice,” said the young woman, looking at the medium with a hard eye.
“I would if I could, my dear. Do you love this man?”
“Oh yes, he’s all right.”
“Well, if you don’t feel more than that about him, I hould leave him alone. Nothing but unhappiness comes of such a marriage.”
“Then you see unhappiness waiting for her?”
“I see a good chance of it. I think she should be careful.”
“Do you see anyone else coming along?”
“Everyone, man or woman, meets their mate sometime somewhere.”
“Then she will get a mate?”
“Most certainly she will.”
“I wonder if I should have any family?” asked the girl.
“Nay, that’s more than I can say.”
“And money — will she have money? We are down hearted, Mr. Linden, and we want a little.”
At this moment there came a most surprising interruption. The door flew open and little Mrs. Linden rushed into the room with pale face and blazing eyes.
“They are policewomen, Tom. I’ve had a warning about them. It’s only just come. Get out of this house, you pair of snivelling hypocrites. Oh, what a fool! What a fool I was not to recognize what you were.” The two women had risen.
“Yes, you are rather late, Mrs. Linden,” said the senior. “The money has passed.”
“Take it back! Take it back! It’s on the table.”
“No, no, the money has passed. We have had our fortune told. You will hear more of this, Mr. Linden.”
“You brace of frauds! You talk of frauds when it is you who are the frauds all the time! He would not have seen you if it had not been for compassion.”
“It is no use scolding us,” the woman answered. “We do our duty and we did not make the law. So long as it is on the Statute Book we have to enforce it. We must report the case at headquarters.”
Tom Linden seemed stunned by the blow, but, when the policewomen had disappeared, he put his arm round his weeping wife and consoled her as best he might.
“The typist at the police office sent down the warning,” she said. “Oh, Tom, it is the second time!” she cried. “It means gaol and hard labour for you.”
“Well, dear, so long as we are conscious of having done no wrong and of having done God’s work to the best of our power, we must take what comes with a good heart.”
“But where were they? How could they let you down so? Where was your guide?”
“Yes, Victor,” said Tom Linden, shaking his head at the air above him, “where were you? I’ve got a crow to pick with you. You know, dear,” he added, “just as a doctor can never treat his own case, a medium is very helpless when things come to his own address. That’s the law. And yet I should have known. I was feeling in the dark. I had no inspiration
