Mediums Rare (6 page)

The footfalls of the group made irregular clacking noises on the hard tile floor, especially the heels of Carrington’s wife (how all the more presumptuous the medium was, clinging to his arm in the presence of his wife) and Mrs. Humphrey.

Less audible were the falling heels of Mr. Forbes, Dr. Humphrey, Mr. Evarts and Carrington himself.

They reached 328 now and, withdrawing his arm from Palladino’s hold, Carrington took the key chain from his trouser pocket and unlocked the door.

Reaching in, he switched on the overhead light and the group entered the small office.

As he went in, Carrington recalled momentarily, his renting of the office; how the owner had been taken back by his request for a sworn statement that the office was an ordinary one, free of trap doors or any other unusual features.

A faint smile raised the ends of his lips as he remembered the expression on the man’s face when he said, in absolute perplexity,
“Trap doors?
In an
office?”

Carrington had not explained.

Quickly and efficiently, he checked the safeguards in the office: the windows sealed and connected to burglar alarms; the special bolts on the insides of the windows and the special bolt and lock on the inside of the door.

None had been touched, of course. He had not expected that they had. Still, these preparations had to be conducted each time.

Critics loved to pounce on any safeguard overlooked, any precaution taken.

The cabinet—seven feet high and three feet on each side—was built into a special partition away from the back wall. It was open on the side facing the office, two curtains hanging across the opening, each made of lightweight black crepe.

Inside the cabinet was a wooden table on top of which lay a flute, mandolin, a music box, a small bell and a tambourine.

Even though Carrington knew that not a soul had entered this office since the previous sitting three nights past—their ninth—he, nonetheless, picked up each instrument and checked it thoroughly.

He was a methodical man and knew that he could never afford to indulge himself in the least bit of carelessness in his preparations for these séances.

“Very well,” he finally said, nodding at Palladino as he set down the tambourine.

While the two women stepped inside the cabinet with the Italian medium to inspect her clothing and make certain she had nothing suspicious hidden on her person, Carrington checked the lights above the three-foot by two-foot table around which they would sit during the séance.

There was a cluster of five globes, the first an unshaded sixteen-candle-power lamp, the second an unshaded four-candle-power lamp.

The third lamp was the same power as the second but was shaded with tissue paper. The fourth, of similar power, was shaded with a thickness of red tissue.

The fifth, also four-candle-power, was shaded with two red screens.

Carrington examined them all. They varied from full illumination to a light in which the eye could make out only hands and faces.

Palladino came out of the cabinet with the two women, smiling to herself.

The women—especially Mrs. Humphrey—seemed embarrassed and Carrington suspected that, during the examination, Palladino had made some off-color (perhaps even lewd) remark; his wife had told him that the Italian woman was prone to such remarks during examinations.

Carrington avoided Palladino’s dark-eyed glance at him when she sat down on her chair.

“So,” she said. “The
strega
sits again.”

She enjoyed referring to herself as a witch.

Carrington regretted her attitude. It was not that he felt personally critical but it made legitimizing her abilities all the more difficult.

What was it Mrs. Finch had called her in that editorial? “A monster of erotic tendencies?” It was scarcely that bad, but Palladino’s behavior
did
make his work more onerous than it had to be.

It was hardly surprising that Hodgson had, so quickly, accused her of fraud. But then Hodgson always had been a pompous, waspish fool.

Carrington switched off the overhead light and, in the full illumination of globe number one, the group took their places, Palladino’s chair with its back to the cabinet, two feet from the curtain, Mrs. Humphrey to her right, Mr. Forbes to her left; her “controls.”

Palladino pressed her left leg against Mr. Forbes’ right leg, making a soft, sensual sound as she did.

Mrs. Carrington, sitting across the table from her, glanced at her husband.

He could only shrug a little. There was nothing he could do. If he said anything remotely captious, Palladino might explode with instant rage and refuse to sit; her temper was mercurial, an ever-present threat.

Everyone in the group rested their hands on the table, fingers touching.

It was nine-thirty p.m.

Eusapia Palladino raised her hands above the table, Mr. Forbes and Mrs. Humphrey holding their legs tightly against the medium’s.

The table moved.

“Raps, please,” Mr. Evarts requested.

On the table top, three faint raps were heard as though in reply.

Carrington freed his right hand momentarily to switch on globe number two and switch off globe number one. The room was now slightly dimmed.

Immediately, the table began to rock.

It, then, rose several feet into the air, was held suspended for a few moments, then lowered back to the floor.

At 9:42 p.m., Carrington again released his right hand to switch on globe number three and switch off globe number two. There was slightly less illumination in the office now.

The left-hand curtain on the cabinet blew out, then fluttered back into place.

The movement was repeatd.

Carrington changed the lighting once more, reducing it to the dim, reddish illumination of globe number four.

Again, their eyes adjusted to the change in light; they could still see very clearly despite the dimness. Both the medium’s hands were visible above the table, being held by her controls. Both her legs were pressed against theirs.

“I’ve been touched on the right arm,” Dr. Humphrey said.

Three loud raps were heard on the surface of the table.

At 9:48 p.m., the left-hand curtain of the cabinet again blew out and settled back into place.

Mr. Forbes’ dry swallow was clearly audible in the silence. “I have Eusapia’s hand firmly in mine but there is a hand behind the curtain touching my arm,” he said.

“I have good control of Eusapia’s right hand and foot,” Mrs. Humphrey added.

The curtains blew out over Mr. Forbes’ head.

“A distinct human hand is coming out of the curtain and touching me on the shoulder,” he said. “I am holding the medium’s left hand tightly.”

“And I am holding her right,” Mrs. Humphrey said.

At 9:55 p.m., Mr. Forbes gasped.

“My coat was grabbed by a hand and I was pulled toward the curtain,” he said.

“Yes, I saw him pulled,” Mrs. Humphrey verified.

Mr. Forbes cried out as his cigar case appeared on the cabinet table. “The case was in my inside coat pocket,” he said. “A hand took it out.”

As they watched, the cigar case opened itself. There was one cigar inside. “There were
three,”
Forbes said, startled.

He gasped as a cigar was suddenly thrust between his teeth. He spit it out.

Palladino’s hands were both in plain sight, two feet distant from the cabinet table.

At 10:02 p.m., the mandolin came floating from the cabinet and rested on top of Palladino’s head. The bell on the cabinet table was heard clattering to the floor.

At 10:04 p.m., the flute sailed slowly out of the cabinet and touched Mr. Forbes on the shoulder.

Mrs. Humphrey caught her breath. “I feel a finger touching my right ear,” she told the group.

The tambourine floated from the cabinet, rose in the air, waved back and forth, then dropped into Mrs. Humphrey’s lap, startling her.

She and Mrs. Forbes reported that Palladino’s legs and hands were still under their control.

The music box began to play in the cabinet. The tambourine rose from Mrs. Humphrey’s lap and floated back into the cabinet, shaking itself. It came out again and hovered above the medium’s head. All of them flinched as it was struck sharply three times.

At 10:19 p.m., everyone at the table felt a strong breeze coming from the cabinet.

“A hand is pinching my fingers,” said Forbes. “I feel the flesh.”

Palladino’s hands and legs and feet were all controlled.

Carrington switched on globe number five and switched off globe number four. The office was almost dark now.

Mrs. Humphrey’s chair was dragged from the table, then returned.

Four loud raps were heard on the table top. The cabinet curtains blew out violently.

“Something black just came out of the cabinet
,” Dr. Humphrey said.

His wife made a frightened sound.

“There is a
white face
,” Mr. Evarts said nervously.

“We see it,” Carrington told him quickly. The atmosphere was becoming too tense, he thought.

At 10:41 p.m., the small table came out of the cabinet and appeared to climb onto the larger table, what looked like a hand grasping the small table.

The small table worked its way over to the edge of the séance table and fell to the floor beside Mr. Forbes, landing upside down. Both controls continued holding tightly to the medium.

At 10:44 p.m., a strong wind began to sweep around the room, chilling everyone. The curtains of the cabinet bulged out.

Mrs. Humphrey made a nervous sound. “Easy,” Carrington told her.

Mrs. Carrington gasped in shock, looking toward the top of the cabinet curtains. The others followed suit and Mrs. Humphrey could not restrain a sob of dread.

A ghastly looking hand was floating near the ceiling, attached to part of an arm.

Mrs. Humphrey sobbed again as the hand floated down and settled on her husband’s shoulder.
“Easy,”
Carrington warned.

Suddenly, it vanished.

Mrs. Carrington cried out.

Hovering near the top of the curtains was a hideous, black, masklike form.

“Remain still,”
Carrington ordered.

Too late. Mrs. Humphrey went limp and started to slump forward in a faint. Tearing loose his hands, her husband moved to support her. Carrington could not control a sound of disappointment.

It was over.

The lights were turned up and Palladino helped to a chair by the window which was opened to give her air. Once more, Carrington was stricken by the change in her appearance. When they’d entered the office, she had been filled with energy, her black eyes alight with an almost diabolical mischief.

Now, after something more than an hour of sitting, she looked weak and drawn, nauseated, her face deeply lined. Amazingly, by tomorrow, after a night’s sleep, her vitality and magnetism would be completely restored.

Forbes moved to the cabinet table. His cigar case still lay on top of it. He opened it and looked inside. There were three cigars again. Grimacing, he closed the case and noticed that the silver monogram which had been on the outside of the case had been violently torn off.

It would not be found in the office or ever seen again.

It was often claimed that Palladino was caught cheating.

That, when her hands were held by sitters, she was able to free one of them with spasmodic jerking movements until both sitters were holding part of the same hand.

This trick seemed to be confirmed by the fact that Palladino objected to having both hands held by the same sitter.

She also refused to be bound in any way.

On occasion, she even refused to let her legs be held.

Yet, it has been declared as too far-fetched that intelligent sitters, well versed in the tricks of mediums, almost always clinging with arms and legs to this elderly Italian woman, could be permanently fooled by foot and hand substitutions.

Her investigators were well aware of her duplicity.

Nonetheless, Sir Oliver Lodge—a world-renowned physicist and one of the most astute of psychic investigators—had this to say about Eusapia Palladino.

“There is no further room in my mind for doubt.”