Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/208

188 the experiments, the victim being my own brother, Mr. A. Podmore. Davey took away the locked double slate A, under cover of a cluster, whilst my brother was watching the slates already prepared for the next experiment. When be effected the resubstitution of the locked slates, he succeeded in completely diverting Mr. A. Podmore's attention by means of some weird narrative of marvellous events at a previous sitting. I saw that my brother's eyes were ﬁxed on the narrator's face for the space of a minute or so. But at the end of the sitting my brother was convinced that he had not intermitted for an instant his watching of the locked slate.

The account above given, however, of the sitting with Mr. H. W. S. is unduly simplified. Miracle (b), as already said, was actually in progress before (a), was fulfilled. The sitter had been asked to clean some slates. Before the sound of writing was heard in the locked slates, Davey had taken two of these slates, together with a third slate, not cleaned by the sitter, on the under surface of which the long message in red chalk had been written before the sitting. On the clean upper surface of this prepared slate he placed a fragment of red chalk and covered it with one of the slates cleaned by the sitter, and left both in full view on the table. The second of the two slates cleaned by the sitter was then placed, as described in the account, under the flap of the table. Probably after a short interval the word "yes" was found written on the slate in answer to some question of sitter or medium. This "yes"