Rush, and they agree
that the body is not in the earth--I fear darling Belle's body--is in
process of being--wired. Marie St. Clair.'

The last word was not, I thought, quite legible, so I appealed to the
Medium, and when he solemnly said 'wired,' the utterance with which I
greeted it he probably thought was a groan, and, indeed, from the
borderland of laughter, I did try to push it over into the land of
tears, as hard as I could.

My third question immediately followed: "Can you give me any information
as to where even a portion of the body is?" Again I was waved to my
seat, again my strip of paper and the hands were concealed, again the
arms were nervously moved. This answer I awaited with not a little
anxiety. Surely, surely, Marie St. Clair and Sister Belle would remember
that their joint skull was in my library. They had told me so, only a
few weeks before, and as that skull was known to be fifty or sixty years
old, and their united memory of it had lasted throughout those long
years, surely that memory would not desert them now. And Dr. 'Benja'
Rush, who had recently greeted me as 'townsman,' he was present and
surely he would come to the rescue of Spiritualism, and gladly seize the
chance to settle the question which he had once discussed with Combe,
and Gall, and Spurzheim by bringing forward the frail Marie and the
golden-haired, black-eyed Belle as tenants in common (and uncommon) of
the same skull. Moreover, I thought, are there not to be found in
Anatomical Museums skeletons of infants with one body and two heads? Why
may not this have been an instance of one head and two bodies? To be
sure, one of the bodies lived in Ohio and the other in Massachusetts,
but then when we have once started on a journey through the marvels of
Spiritualism, as portrayed by these four Mediums, what does such a
trifle as this amount to? I had, I reflected, in all seriousness, taken
no single step in the investigation of these Mediums that was not fully
authorized by the explicit statements received from the Mediums
themselves. I had accepted as truth what they told me was truth. If
Spiritualism is hereby wounded, it is wounded in the house of its own
disciples.

At last my answer came: 'I am not allowed to divulge what _I_
think--much less what I know--it would be productive of more harm than
good--let them have it--it is but earth at best--they have not got _our_
precious Belle--she is safe in the Haven of Eternal repose--_I_