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Page 43
"Nobody else ever spent a night here after the lady's death?"
"Nobody. Of that I am quite certain."
"Have you not left the house since?"
"Frequently. I generally spend March, April, and May on the
Continent--in France or Italy. But the house is never closed,
and my people are responsible to me. The room is always locked,
and when I am not in residence Abraham Masters, my butler, keeps
the key. He shares my own feelings so far as the Grey Room is
concerned."
The detective nodded. He was standing in the middle of the room
with his hands in his pockets.
"A strange fact--the force of superstition," he said. "It seems
to feed on night, where ghosts are involved. What, I suppose,
credulous people call 'the powers of darkness.' But have you ever
asked yourself why the spiritualists must work in the dark?"
"To simplify their operations, no doubt, and make it easier for
the spirits."
"And themselves! But why is the night sacred to apparitions and
supernatural phenomena generally?"
"Tradition associates them with those hours. Spiritualists say it
is easier for spectres to appear in the dark by reason of their
material composition. It is then that we find the most authentic
accounts of their manifestations."
"Yes; because at that time human vitality is lowest and human
reason weakest. Darkness itself has a curious and depressing
effect on the minds of many people. I have won my advantage from
that more than once. I once proved a very notorious crime by the
crude expedient of impersonating the criminal's victim--a murdered
woman--and appearing to him at night before a concealed witness.
But spirits are doomed. The present extraordinary wave of
superstition and the immense prosperity of the dealers in the
'occult' is a direct result of the war. They are profiteers--
every one of them--crystal gazers, mediums, fortune tellers, and
the rest. They are reaping a rare harvest for the moment. We
punish the humbler rogues, but we don't punish the fools who go to
see them. If I had my way, the man or woman who visited the modern
witch or wizard should get six months in the second division.
Fools should be punished oftener for their folly. But education
will sweep these things into the limbo of man's ignorance and
mental infancy. Ghosts cannot stand the light of knowledge any
better than they can operate in the light of day."
"You are very positive, Mr. Hardcastle."
"Not often--on this subject--yes, Sir Walter Lennox. I have seen
too much of the practitioners. Metaphysics is largely to blame.
Physics, the strong, you will find far too merciful to metaphysics,
the weak."
Sir Walter found himself regarding Hardcastle with dislike. He
spoke quietly, yet there was something mocking and annoying in his
dogmatism.
"You must discuss the subject with Mr. May, who breakfasted with
us. He will, I think, have no difficulty in maintaining the
contrary opinion."
"They never have any difficulty--clergymen I mean--and argument
with them is vain, because we cannot find common ground to start
from. What is the reverend gentleman's theory?"
"He believes that the room holds an invisible and conscious
presence permitted to exercise powers of a physical character
antagonistic to human life. He is guarded, you see, and will not
go so far as to say whether this being is working for good or evil."
"But it has done evil, surely?"
"Evil from our standpoint. But since the Supreme Creator made this
creature as well as He made us, therefore Mr. May holds that we are
not justified in declaring its operations are evil--save from a
human standpoint."
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