Page:Resurrection Rock (1920).pdf/346

 established, therefore, most ideal conditions for the trial of Lucas's plan to demonstrate the fact of Agnes Cullen's presence in the realm of the dead; and although, a few weeks earlier, Lucas had boasted of his plan and been impatient for opportunity to put it in practice, now when Jaccard told him that the time had come, Lucas delayed and postponed upon one pretext or another.

Not because he at all doubted the death of Agnes; rather, indeed, because he was completely satisfied that she was dead.

"Here's the point," he raised an objection with Jaccard; "when we get into a séance, how can we control that woman?"

"We can't," Jaccard admitted. "She's not doing it for money; besides, she's honest. She'd be no use if she wasn't. It's the known fact that no one can reach her that makes her valuable to us. You get an evidential message through Mrs. Brand from Agnes Cullen, and it'll mean something."

Lucas started a little. "But how can we know what sort of message it'll be?"

"What do we care?" Jaccard returned, "so long as we can prove it's from Mrs. Oliver Cullen." Then the lawyer estimated more keenly his client's face. "Oh!" he said. "Oh! A spirit can't say much," he reassured. "The difficulty is to make them say anything at all which is comprehensible."

Yet Lucas temporized. For he had learned that, under extraordinary conditions, spirits—or some manifestation simulating the effect of spirits and with a good deal of disconcerting information—said a good deal; they might even speak in their own voices and appear, "materialize."