Page:Isis very much unveiled - being the story of the great Mahatma hoax (IA b24884273).pdf/144

136 possession by a devil; so no doubt he will say that here, too, it was “the Black Magicians” (per Brother Chakravarti) who both imposed the delusion and manufactured the missive to fit it. Note that he does not appeal to Mrs. Besant to bear him out, but says: “It cannot be proved by anybody’s testimony, unless you will accept perjury.” This is not the only passage in his Reply where Mr. Judge foreshadowed his readiness to extend his accusations of lying, pledge-breaking, &c. (as, indeed, he is logically bound to), from Mr. Old to Mr. Old’s fellow-sinners, Mrs. Besant and Colonel Olcott.

The other missive with which Mr. Judge disclaims connexion is the only one in the whole series which was apparently not produced in immediate juxtaposition with him, and under his personal superintendence. That, indeed, was just the point of it; it was enclosed in a letter from another person, with all the distance between New York and California to prove that Mr. Judge could have had no hand in it. It was, in fact, a last desperate attempt to lull the suspicions of the recipient, Colonel Olcott, who, however, discovered that Mr. Judge had been in California, and in the company of Mr. Clark, from whom the letter came, at the very date of the letter. (“Isis,” pp. 50–52.)

I told this story—quoting Colonel Olcott’s evidence—and forthwith was assured, publicly, in general terms (“Isis,” p. 76), then specifically through a private source, that Mr. Judge could annihilate it by producing an affidavit from the Mr. Clark in question. (“Abbot Clark”—the name comically recalls that of “Abner Dean” in Bret Harte’s “Society upon the Stanislaus.”) I was not much perturbed by this announcement, as the reserve evidence in my hands happened to include the substance of a letter from Mr. Abbot Clark himself, offering abundant material for cross-examination upon the boasted “affidavit,” if and when this was produced.

And lo! now we have this precious “affidavit” (which, by the way, turns out not to be an affidavit at all), testifying—what? Why, that Mr. Judge had abundant opportunities for inserting or getting inserted any enclosure he wished in Mr. Clark’s letter, and that the