The talkers

What was known concerning the extraordinary case of Gilda Greenway was being man-handled, daily, at the Fireside Club—old George Derring having gabbled widely to the fierce annoyance of Sadoul.

Pockman, also vastly annoyed, made the best of it—made no bones about it, in fact.

Badgered, disgusted, but at bay, he was perhaps too cynical, too indifferent, or possibly too confident of himself to lie or to evade newspaper publicity—the terror of all reputable physicians.

“Well, what astonishes you?” he retorted to the veiled gibes from his tormentors at the Fireside. “I’ve killed rats and done the same thing to them.”

“Do you mean to tell us,” demanded Harry Stayr, “that you’ve resurrected dead rats by grafting glands on their necks?”

“One gland—the nymphalic.”

“Oh! Have rats got that gland, too?”

“All vertebrates have it.”

“And those rats really were dead?”

“They were not only dead,” said Pockman wearily, “but I’d had them in cold storage at zero for three months.”

“And when you thawed ’em out and operated they came to and squealed their thanks,” suggested Stayr, grinning.

“They became lively enough in a few hours.”

“And squealed?”

“That’s what they did, Harry.”

“Did little Miss Greenway become gratefully demonstrative when you brought her back from the Pearly Gates,” inquired Julian Fairless, “or did she cry for her harp and halo?”

“When she came to life she dressed and went home in a taxi, I believe,” replied Pockman drily.

“Where’s Sadoul’s girl to prove it?” demanded Sam Warne. “I’d like to ask her what she saw up aloft after she died.”

“So you believe in the survival of the soul, do you, Sam?” said Fairless languidly.

“Well—Pockman says so——”

“I did not say so,” interrupted Pockman. “I said that I have proven survival of the life principle in certain glands; and that, after what we call death occurs, a state of anarchy prevails in the cadaver. All the organs are still alive; the cells which compose them are engaged in civil war.”

“What is your theory, then?”

“A very simple one—that the secretions of the nymphalic gland control every one of the trillions of cells in the human body. I assume that ultimate dissolution begins with atrophy of this gland. I believe that, by grafting a new and young and living nymphalic gland upon a dead human body, the organs of that body can be revived, rejuvenated, and persuaded to resume their natural functions. And I am now absolutely satisfied that I have proven this theory to be a fact.”

“Won’t this make a considerable splash in the medical puddle?” asked Fairless.

“Not if the newspapers get hold of it,” replied Pockman. “As Shakespeare says, ‘Publicity doth make monkeys of us all’!” He glanced about him almost wistfully: “If you fellows would be reticent and decent and permit me to go on for a year or two, and then, when I’m ready, let me make my own announcement through proper channels——” He looked around again at The Talkers; then the habitual and glassy smirk disfigured him, and he shrugged his shoulders:

“What’s the use?” he concluded. “You’re born to talk and you’ll do it. So I’ll get the dirty end of the stick for awhile—I’ll get what’s coming to me from the newspapers. I’ll get hell from my profession. You fellows couldn’t hold your tongues if you wanted to.”

“Matters discussed in a gentleman’s club are sacred,” observed somebody heavily.

“Sure,” sneered Pockman; “—I’ve been a victim of gentlemen’s agreements.” His pale eyes rested mockingly on Derring, flickered, travelled on impartially.

“It’s the dinner table that undoes you,” he added, “—when it’s not your best girl—in ‘strictest confidence.’ Yes—I know.”

“That’s a nasty thing to say about any member of this club,” protested Julian Fairless. “I haven’t the slightest desire to gossip, and your damned glands don’t interest me.”

“A nasty insinuation and a nasty subject,” broke out Derring, in his high, shrill voice. “I’m sure I had enough of it when they put a corpse into my spare bed and performed autopsies all over my apartment——”

“Do you object to our talking to Sutton and Sadoul about it?” inquired Harry Stayr. “I promise you it won’t get outside this club——”

But Pockman had no illusions: “Talk your damned heads off if you like,” he said, getting out of his arm-chair and striding away in that ungainly, rickety gait which, Stayr insisted, always made him think of Holbein’s “Dance of Death.”

Death continued to be the topic of The Talkers gathered around the grate at the Fireside Club that snowy evening.

Sadoul, looking ill, wandered in later and joined the circle, but sullenly refused information regarding the episode in question, and stretched himself out on a lounge, his sombre eyes veiled in indifference. Only when Mortimer Lyken strolled in was the surgical aspect of the affair revived—Dr. Lyken’s researches having associated him for years with the work of that shadowy personage generally known as The State Electrician.

But Sing Sing autopsies, not the grafting of glands, were Lyken’s specialties, and he had nothing new to contribute to the talk of The Talkers.

So The Talkers, who loved to talk of The Beginning and of The End, fell, presently, to discussing the soul—the same old soul which so often they had proved non-existent, and merely a component part of the exploded God-myth.

Said Stayr, whose articles on “The God-myth and Its Origin” were known everywhere that Talkers talked:

“If some of you millionaires like George Derring will back me, I’ll post a standing offer to perform any miracle mentioned in the New Testament or forfeit the stakes.”

Somebody objected to treating such a matter as a sporting proposition.

“Why not?” insisted Stayr. “It’s the way to exterminate the God-myth and Christ-superstition.”

Sutton, who had come in unnoticed and seated himself by the fire, touched Stayr on the arm:

“Where does it get you, Harry, to prove there is no God?”

“Get me? What do you mean? Don’t you want the truth?”

“Yes.... But are you authorised to dispense it?”

“Oh, well,” said Stayr, “—if you want to take that tone you’d better stick to the God of your forefathers, Stuart.”

“But where does it get you?” persisted Sutton, “if you convince people that there is no Divinity, no resurrection, no survival? The world is a wolf at heart. What’s to control it if you destroy its belief in spiritual survival?”

“Self-interest. The good will continue to be good, not for any sordid reward hereafter, but because being good is good business. The bad will be canned for the same reason.”

“You think the world could remain sane if it believed death meant spiritual annihilation?”

“Isn’t the immortality of the cell enough?” inquired Lyken.

“He’s an authority on cells,” piped up old Derring:

His shrill doggerel ended in a cackle and he slapped his knee, convulsed. It was George Derring at his most brilliant. But he gave parties.

Lyken forced a smile: “You are composed of several billion cells that never can die, George. Ultimately these cells will reunite, form a new republic, and develop into another living being. Isn’t that enough immortality for you?”

“That’s all there is to this soul business, anyway,” added Stayr. “There’s no survival of individual personality after death.”

“You seem to differ with Sir Oliver, Sir William, and Sir Conan,” said Fairless, “—not to mention a few million other educated folk.”

“I’ll do that, too, if Derring will stake me,” retorted Stayr. “I’ll move tables, produce raps, report progress from celestial regions, and materialise spirits. I’ll talk the jargon to you, too—all about psychic forces and planes and controls—the whole bunch of bunk!”

Sadoul sat up on his couch and peered through the firelight at Stayr.

“As long as the world can depend on your omnipotence, Harry,” he sneered, “it won’t miss God.”

“What’s worrying you?” retorted Stayr. “Do you believe in spiritual survival?”

Sadoul gazed about him. Half of his face was painted an infernal red by the firelight, half remained in shadow. His lambent gaze rested on Sutton, shifted from one man to the next, returned finally to Stayr.

“The life-principle survives after death,” he said in a dull voice.

“Yes, several billions of ’em,” rejoined Stayr, “—separately.”

“No; there is personal survival—call it vital-principle life-origin”—he shrugged—“call it soul, spirit—anything you choose.... But it is indestructible; and it isn’t one of a billion cells, or any of them, or all of them—the thing I speak of—it’s you yourself; it’s your individual, personal survival in form, feature, and intelligence.”

“In other words, the same old orthodox soul we’ve canned so often,” nodded Stayr. “But up it pops like jack-in-the-box, every time you psycho-hypnotic gentlemen wave your hands and murmur ‘abracadabra.’”

Fairless said politely: “Perhaps Sadoul has proven his theory of individual spiritual survival.”

“Pockman proved his theory of physical survival,” added Warne, “—according to his own deposition.”

“Do a hypnotic or psychic stunt for us,” urged Derring shrilly. “Go ahead, Sadoul. Seeing is believing, you know,” he added, cackling.

Sadoul glanced at him disdainfully.

Sutton said: “If seeing were believing, there had been no crucifixion.”

“I’ll believe what I see,” piped Derring. “But you’ve got to show me, Sadoul.”

Sadoul’s sombre gaze returned to Derring. He looked at him intently for a moment; then, measuring his words:

“Very—well—Derring. I’ll—show—you. But—you—can—never—see; never—understand. You—only—look—but—you—see—nothing. You—hear—but—you—understand—nothing.... Stand—up—you—old—ass.”

Everybody had turned to stare at Derring. They saw him rise, obediently.

That he was under the control of Sadoul was evident to every man present. Nobody questioned that; nobody exclaimed.

“That’s very clever of you, Sadoul,” said Stayr, putting on his eye-glasses. “How did you pick him for a sure-fire subject?” He tried to speak easily.

“Can you make him turn a hand-spring?” asked Fairless.

“Don’t make a monkey of him,” said Sutton sharply.

Derring’s faded, frivolous features remained fixed and rigid.

“Sit down,” said Sadoul, contemptuously. Derring obediently resumed his chair.

Seated there, full in the firelight, there was something grotesquely revolting about this carefully preserved, empty-headed, garrulous bon-viveur, with all his shrill chatter shut off, all his fidgety initiative paralysed—nothing left except an inhabited suit of evening clothes and a foolish old face above a winged-collar——

“For heaven’s sake,” said Sutton, “wake him up, Sadoul.”

“Wake up, Derring,” said Sadoul carelessly.

Derring’s eyes had been open. Now he moved in his chair, glanced about him, then looked at Sadoul.

“Well,” he said shrilly, “seeing is believing. You’ve got to show me, Sadoul; I’m from——”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” snarled Stayr, and spat into the fire. Then, looking at Sadoul: “Do you expect a thing like that to survive?”

“Expect what?” piped Derring. “What are you talking about? I missed something somebody said——”

Fairless interrupted, speaking across the fire to Sadoul:

“Clean stuff,” he said, “—very professional.... And can a surgeon operate under such conditions?”

“One first induces a more profound hypnosis.... After that—yes.”

“Major operations?”

“Certainly.”

“Treatment by suggestion, also, I suppose,” ventured Sutton.

“Yes.”

“Well,” admitted Stayr, “you called a bluff very cleverly, Sadoul. I admit it. Now if you’ll show us a soul or two——”

“I showed one to Derring,” returned Sadoul with a slight sneer.

“Hey? Showed me? What do you mean?” cried Derring. “What did you show me? I didn’t see anything——”

“I didn’t say you did. I said you looked at something.”

“God bless me, what the devil did I look at?” exclaimed Derring. “Come, now, Sadoul; that won’t do, you know. That’s all bunk, d’you see? I’ve been sitting here all the time and I didn’t see anything unusual, nor did anybody else, I’ll wager!”

Sam Warne laughed. Stayr, always bored and never amused by Derring’s obvious antics, turned to Sadoul:

“Come on,” he said impatiently. “Show me something I can’t account for and I’ll hand it to your orthodox God and go out of business.”

“Why should I? I don’t care what you believe,” retorted Sadoul wearily.

“Don’t you care if I believe you a fakir?”

“No.”

“Well, then, as a sporting proposition?”

“No.”

“Not even for the pleasure of making a monkey of me and putting me out of business?”

“If I showed you—something—you wouldn’t believe you saw it.”

Fairless asked Sadoul if it were necessary for him to go into a trance to materialise anything. Sadoul shook his head, but his sombre eyes remained fixed on Sutton.

“What a fakir you are, Sadoul,” observed Stayr.

Sadoul, not noticing him, said to Sutton: “I can show you something.”

“What?”

“Something you’ll be up against unless you keep away from a certain person of whom I have already warned you.... Shall I show you?”

“I don’t quite get you——”

“Very well. Look!”

Almost at the same moment Sutton saw something on the lounge beside Sadoul—a greyish figure that became more distinct as he stared at it—the figure of a girl—her face already assuming the contour and hue of life.

He realised it was Gilda he was staring at—yet a Gilda he had never seen in living shape—this sensuous young thing with softly rounded body, a trifle too heavy, with lips too full, too scarlet—this unknown Gilda with her languid eyes—her smiling lips scarce parted——

Swiftly the thing turned grey, faded—was no longer there.... Sutton got up; Sadoul rose, also.

“Did you see anything?” asked Sadoul grimly.

“Yes.”

“Well—that’s what the cat brought back!... You wouldn’t like it, Sutton.... But I do.... So keep away or there’ll be trouble——”

Stayr, who had risen, took Sadoul by the elbow.

“Very clever,” he said harshly, forcing his voice to steady it; “—very neat and professional, Sadoul. I saw a grey thing, resembling a human figure, seated on the lounge beside you.... You hypnotised me, of course——”

“I told you that you wouldn’t believe what you saw,” sneered Sadoul, shoving past him and striding toward the door.

“Did you see anything?” demanded Fairless, pulling Stayr’s sleeve. “I didn’t.”

The latter glanced around at the others with an annoyed expression, yet slightly foolish, too.

Nobody else, it appeared, had noticed anything unusual, but everybody was curious to hear what Stayr had seen.

“That fellow, Sadoul,” said Stayr, “is a fakir.... I thought I saw something.... I guess he got in some of his hypnotic bunk on me when I was off my guard.... Something like that.... Isn’t that about how it hit you, Sutton?”

“Perhaps.”

“You did see something, didn’t you?”

“I don’t know—I guess so,” he said vaguely.

“Don’t you want to talk about it?” asked Stayr uneasily.

Sutton shook his head and walked slowly toward the cloak-room.