"If everyone is ready," suggested Dr. Richard Rich, "shall we begin the experiment?"
It was nearly nine o'clock. The long, spacious back drawing room was lighted only by a bridge lamp, with a white parchment shade, beside the sofa.
Arthur Fane had always been punctilious about the ceremony of dressing for dinner. But tonight, as a concession to the heat, he had so far unbent as to wear a soft shirt with his dinner jacket. So did the other men with the exception of Frank Sharpless, whose black-and-scarlet mess jacket fitted tightly round the usual stiff shirt and black tie. Vicky Fane wore dark violet, with full skirt and sleeves. Ann Browning was in white. All stood out vividly, even in shadow, against the cream-painted walk.
The windows at the narrow end of the room were open. But their curtains had been partly drawn, so that only the last shreds of daylight entered when Richard Rich took up a position with his back to the red-brick fireplace.
Dr. Rich was a short, stocky, comfortable-looking man in an untidy dinner jacket. He had thrust his hands into the pockets of it. He was bald except for an unexpected brush of hair, black streaked with gray, which began half way down the back of his skull and curled out over his collar. It formed the only vaguely theatrical touch to an otherwise stout, ordinary personality. His round face was slightly flushed with the heat, or with the brandy he had taken after dinner. He was smiling.
"And when we do begin," he continued, softly over a note of heavy brass. "I think Captain Sharpless will understand why I couldn't proceed last night."
Sharpless waved this aside.
"All right. But what is this experiment, exactly?"
"That's what I want to know," agreed Arthur Fane rather sharply. "What are you going to do?"
Dr. Rich smiled in a maddeningly cryptic way.
"With your permission," he said, "I first of all propose to place one of you under hypnosis."
"You're not going to place me under hypnosis," said Arthur, "and get me to make a fool of myself in public. Besides, I don't hold with this. It's — it's morbid."
"You would be a bad hypnotic subject anyway," smiled Dr. Rich. "No. With her permission, the person I propose to use for the experiment is Mrs. Fane."
For some reason, this created a minor sensation.
Vicky was sitting bolt upright in a slender chair not far from the fireplace, her hands folded in her lap. She turned her head round, surprised.
"Me?" she asked. "But why? I mean, why me?"
"First, Mrs. Fane, because you're the best hypnotic subject here. The second reason — well, you'll understand the second reason when we have finished."
"But I should have thought…"
Vicky did not complete die sentence. What she evidently meant, to judge by the direction of her glance, was that she thought the best subject would be Miss Ann Browning.
Ann Browning was sitting in shadow, in one of the white easy chairs. She bent forward absorbedly, in deep and eager interest. Though about the same age as Vicky, she seemed to have little of the letter's brisk practicality. She was smaller than Vicky, and more slender. Her hair, gold where the light struck it, was bound round her head. Her skin, against the white gown, had merely a clear glow as opposed to Vicky's faint tan.
Dr. Rich's shrewd little eyes interpreted that glance, and answered it.
"You would be wrong, Mrs. Fane," he said.
"Wrong?"
"I suppose you share most people's view that the easiest hypnotic subject is a sensitive or highly strung person? That, as any doctor will tell you, is the exact reverse of true."
Arthur Fane sat up.
"Do you call me a sensitive or highly strung person?" he asked incredulously.
"No, Mr. Fane. You are just dogged. You would fight the influence. I doubt whether anybody could hypnotize you."
"By George, you're right there," breathed Arthur. He was flattered and pleased; and, as usual when pleased, his rare, pleasant smile lit up the dark face. He took two puffs at a dead cigar. "But why has it got to be any of us? Why can't we have one of the maids in, and experiment on her?"
"Arthur, they'd talk!" said Vicky warningly.
Her husband saw the justice of this, and subsided. But he did not seem pleased. He kept darting glances, rather hungry glances, in the direction of Ann Browning. Vicky saw these looks too.
"Well, Mrs. Fane?" prompted Rich.
Vicky laughed a little. "I don't mind being the victim, exactly. But it's as Arthur says. I don't want to make a fool of myself in public. This — this is the business where your subconscious mind is supposed to be released, isn't it?"
"Only in a sense. You will be under the control of my will, and must obey my orders."
"Yes, that's what I mean," returned Vicky, rather hastily. "I mean, I shouldn't want to be made to quack like a duck, or go up and kiss somebody, or anything like that."
Throughout the foregoing, Uncle Hubert Fane, who was smoking one of Arthur's best cigars with relish, had several times looked very thoughtful. A watcher might even have said that he seemed apprehensive. Once, at the mention of the subconscious mind, he cleared his throat as though to intervene.
But Dr. Rich forestalled him.
"Mrs. Fane," Rich said gravely, "please remember that this is not a side-show or an exhibition of parlor magic. It is a serious scientific experiment. I'm not even sure that I can bring it off. I give you my word that you will be asked to do nothing which will embarrass you or hold you up to ridicule."
"Come on, Vicky! Be a sport!" urged Ann Browning, in her soft, attractive voice.
"You promise?" Vicky asked Rich.
"I promise."
"All right," said Vicky, lifting her shoulders and smiling not without wryness. "Let the dirty work begin. What do you want me to do?"
There was a general expelling of breaths in the long room.
Rich turned round to the mantelpiece. From the top of it, beside the clock, he took down a cardboard shoe-box which he had long ago placed there in preparation for this.
"Now, Mrs. Fane! First of all, I must tell something to the others which it is necessary that you shall not hear. Would you mind going out into the hall for a moment, until I call you in?"
"What is all this?" demanded Sharpless, after a pause. "Charades?"
Rich swung round on him.
"Captain Sharpless, if you will remain silent, and be content to watch an experiment which you yourself challenged me to perform, I think you'll understand what it is in a very few minutes."
"Sorry. No offense intended. But—"
"You don't mind, Mrs. Fane?"
"No, not at all."
Rich had removed the cover from the cardboard box. As Vicky rose to her feet and stepped past him, it was impossible that she should not have at least a brief glimpse inside. Rich replaced the cover on the box rather hastily. Putting it under his arm, he went to open the door for her.
The door was in the same wall as the fireplace: that is, the long wall at right-angles to the windows, but far away from the windows towards the other end of the room.
Rich opened the door for Vicky, stood aside as she went out, and closed it again. It was a good heavy door; but it closed imperfectly and the latch did not catch. As Rich turned back to the others, the door creaked an inch or two open.
Sharpless was about to call his attention to this when the doctor's eye caught them again.
"I have in this box," he said in his soft, heavy bass voice, "two exhibits. Exhibit A — a rubber dagger."
"See here!" — began Arthur Fane.
"Yes?" prompted Ann Browning.
Rich held up the toy dagger. Its blade was painted silvery gray to represent a patchy and unconvincing-looking metal; its handle was black. Without any sense of incongruity, Rich bent the soft rubber back and forth.
"Bought this morning at Woolworth's," he explained. "A sixpenny rubber dagger which can hardly be called dangerous. That's Exhibit A. But Exhibit B is different."
He replaced the dagger in the box, and took out the second article. When they saw it, the breath from his audience was something like a mutter of consternation.
"Exhibit B," said Rich. "A real revolver, loaded with real bullets."
There was a silence.
Over his audience the revolver seemed to exercise a kind of evil fascination. It was a Webley.38, of dark, polished metal except for the ivory grip. Rich broke it open, plucked one of the cartridges from the cylinder, tossed the cartridge into the air, and caught it.
"Definitely not a toy," he pointed out, replacing the bullet and closing the magazine with a sharp click. "In fact, as deadly a weapon as we're likely to find. Therefore.. yes? Yes? What is it?"
He broke off, frowning at Sharpless.
The latter was going through a pantomime of extraordinary concentration. After screwing up his face and making gestures to attract Rich's attention, Sharpless was stabbing his finger in the direction of the partly open door.
Rich, as though enlightened, uttered an exclamation. He hurried over and closed the door firmly.
"She heard you!" said Sharpless in a whisper. "She couldn't have helped hearing you!"
Rich smiled.
"I sincerely hope she did," he answered with composure. "If she didn't, there is no point in this experiment."
"What?"
Rich tossed the pistol across to Sharpless, who automatically caught it.
"Examine that revolver," Rich suggested. "Or, more properly, examine the bullets."
The bullets were dummies.
Each empty brass cartridge-case had been fitted with a little rounded cylinder of wood, painted gray to represent a bullet. Sharpless took out each one in turn, and examined it carefully before he fitted it back again.
"I think I begin to see," he muttered, "what sort of dirty trick you've got in mind. This gun isn't dangerous at all. But—"
"Exactly," agreed Rich. "It is no more a deadly weapon than the dagger. But Mrs. Fane thinks it is."
Uncle Hubert Fane, whose apprehension at first sight of the revolver had now merged into relief, was taking such fast, furious puffs at his cigar that his head appeared to be enveloped in smoke.
"You follow me?" inquired Rich. "Here are two articles. One of them, the dagger, Mrs. Fane's inner mind knows to be harmless. The other, that revolver, she believes to be real. Very well. I shall put Mrs. Fane into a state of hypnosis. Then I shall order her to.. "
"To kill somebody," breathed Ann Browning.
"Exactly," said Rich.
It was now altogether dark, except for the white light of the parchment-shaded bridge lamp beside the sofa. A faint cooler breeze stirred the curtains at the windows.
"Mind!" added Rich, rubbing a hand vigorously across his bald skull, "I don't say I shall be able to manage this. I may not be able to establish the proper degree of influence. But if I do—"
"If you do?" prompted Ann.
"If I do," smiled Rich, "then I can tell you exactly what will happen. Under hypnosis, you understand, the patient has no mind or will of her own. She is a machine. A zombie. A walking corpse, under my direction. But—"
"Yes?"
"When she is ordered to pick up that revolver and shoot someone she loves, then she will balk. Even in anguish she won't be able to do it. Powerful as my influence is, it can't get past the barrier in her subconscious mind. But when I order her to take the dagger and stab someone, she will strike without the least hesitation. Because her subconscious mind knows that it's all a game."
Again there was a silence.
"Well, Captain Sharpless?" said Rich. "If I succeed in doing that, will you own yourself convinced?"
"I don't like it!" said that young man abruptly, and jumped to his feet.
"You don't like it, Captain Sharpless? But you were the one who suggested it."
"Yes, but I didn't know what you were going to do. I didn't know you were going to do this.”
"I think it's the most thrilling thing I've ever heard of," declared Ann Browning.
"Who," asked Sharpless, "who are you going to order her to kill?"
Rich looked surprised.
"Her husband, of course. Who else?"
Frank Sharpless craned his neck round. But if he expected any support from Fane, he did not get it.
From whatever cause, Arthur appeared to have changed his mind. He sat very still in an easy chair, his middle-sized, thick-set figure balanced on die edge of it, staring down at his well-polished shoes. The dead cigar was between his fingers. He moved his heels outwards, a queer gesture, and brought them together again with a click. He glanced up, his dark face impassive.
"I don't hold with this. Still… it won't hurt my wife in any way?"
"Oh, no. She may feel tired afterwards. But, if Mrs. Fane is the healthy, uncomplex person I am sure she is, it won't affect her at all."
"Will she know what's happening at the time?" "No."
"Or remember it afterwards?" "No."
'Is that so, now?" mused Arthur. He scratched the side of his nose with a fingernail of the game hand that held his cigar. He studied Rich. Again the rare.smile gleamed. "Suppose (just suppose, now!) that my wife did have it in her inmost mind to — hurt me?"
Rich was taken aback.
"My dear sir," he began, with the color rising in his face, "I never thought… that is, it seemed so obvious!.. Mr. Hubert Fane assured me…"
"Oh, we're only supposing!" Arthur reassured him. He was really smiling now. The thick complacency of his tone would have been felt anywhere, even at his club. "I'm not one to talk about my marriage, as you'll agree. But I don't mind saying that to find a happier couple than Victoria and I you'd have to go far. Very far indeed."
He paused.
"Some people," he added, "might call my life humdrum—"
"Dear boy," interposed Uncle Hubert, with his eye on a corner of the lamp-shade, "I feel sure they would do you no such injustice, if they knew you as I do."
"But I don't call it humdrum," concluded Arthur, after giving him a brief look. "Carry on with the experiment."
Frank Sharpless took a few steps up and down the bare hardwood floor, with its few bright rugs. His black mess jacket with scarlet lapels, and close-fitting black trousers with scarlet stripe down the side, gave him a lean and Mephistophelian appearance which was contradicted by the naive youthfulness of the face. His booted footsteps rattled on the floor. Though he made a gesture of protest, he did not speak again.
"Then we are all agreed?" inquired Rich. "Good!"
He put the lid on the cardboard box containing the revolver and the rubber dagger. This box he handed to Arthur.
"Keep our two exhibits, Mr. Fane, until I tell you what to do with them." Then Rich went over and opened the door. "Come in, Mrs. Fane," he invited.