Munsey's Magazine/Volume 32/Issue 5/The Magnetized Man

by Morgan Robertson

 

THE MAGNETIZED MAN.

A YACHT CLUB MAN'S DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT, AND ITS AMAZING SEQUEL.

BY MORGAN ROBERTSON

I.

AS a practitioner and dilettante student of hypnotism, I had always thought that the so-called power lay in the weakness, or suggestibility, of the subject rather than in any magnetic emanations from the physical being of the operator. Since my experience with Dart, even though I have read up and heard all that is expounded on the matter, I have been compelled to change my mind, or at least to admit my ignorance. It is proven that the muscles of the body give out the newly discovered N rays; and the positive, projective, oppressing power of some personalities may be contained in these rays, or they may not; I do not know. Neither does Dart, nor Braisted, nor Fanton, nor any one concerned in the case—least of all did the man whose possession of this strange power, and irresponsible use of it, brought about my change of heart.

He was a small, insignificant-looking fellow, and excepting for a trick of carrying his eyes wide open—which created a preponderance of white in the general effect—he had not an ounce of individuality about him. A shifty, cowardly, ignorant, and under-bred man, he seemed; and he occupied the berth of second cook on Braisted's big steam-yacht.

Braisted was like his yacht, big and well-appointed, which is description enough of him. Fanton deserves more, and Dart still more. Fanton was an invalid under my care. Though decidedly stout, he was a sufferer from dyspepsia. Dart was his antithesis, slender and handsome, with the mind of a poet and the bearing of an army officer, with a luminous dark eye that looked you through and through, and a smile that went straight to your heart. Like Braisted, he was wealthy, a lawyer, and a yacht-owner; but with Fanton and myself, he was a guest on board Braisted's Nautilus during the club's last official cruise down the Sound.

We were lying anchored overnight at New London. The quiet old river was alive with launches and gigs, passing between the yachts and the shore, and the evening display of searchlights had not begun. We sat, all but Fanton, who was in his room below, in big deck chairs on the fantail, and discussed hypnotism. Braisted talked with utter ignorance of the subject, but intense interest in it; Dart with the smiling superiority of manner peculiar to the fellow who cannot be hypnotized—you know him—and I with the cautious yet cock-sure nonassertiveness of medical men—you know us—when not quite sure of themselves.

Dart said he would like to meet the man who could put him to sleep against his will; and as he said so, I mentally approved of his stand. With his flashing eye, his vibrant intonation, his whole god-like personality, he seemed the pure embodiment of soul, will, intellectual force. But the listening steward, a favored factotum of Braisted's, volunteered the information that the second cook could mesmerize the men forward, and the eager Braisted demanded a trial.

“Can you hypnotize people?” he asked when De Cler, looking uncomfortable in a hurriedly donned white jacket, had shuffled aft from the galley. “Put them to sleep, I mean?”

“Oui, monsieur, eet is vary simple,” answered De Cler—a Frenchman, evidently—in a half defiant, half embarrassed manner.

“Try to put this gentleman to sleep.”

Braisted jerked his thumb toward Dart. The fellow approached him—and it was here that the first thought of radiant energy entered my head; for even as he approached, the smile left the face of Dart. Then, as De Cler stood over him and brought his own raised hands down with a sweeping motion, Dart's eyelids closed, and his head sank back. He was asleep!

I shivered at the uncanny exhibition, but Braisted was jubilant.

“Make him do stunts,” he ordered. “Make him dance!”

Braisted seemed to be hypnotized himself. Against my earnest protest he encouraged that dull, thick-witted potato-peeler to play football with one of the keenest intellects of the New York bar. He had Dart down on his knees, believing himself a scrubwoman scrubbing a floor. He made him ride a vicious horse in the shape of a capstan bar, prancing about the deck in imitation of a bronco's bucking. He put him into a boat, gave him imaginary oars, and made him row with empty hands, fast and furiously. Then he got him to his feet and paused a moment, thinking, I suppose, of the next outrage, when fat Fanton appeared, wheezing and grunting, at the head of the companion stairs.

“See zat man—you see him?” said the Frenchman boldly. “He is ze offisaire—you see?'—ze policeman. Eet is propare wiz a policeman pull ze nose—you see? You pull ze nose, and zen you—ah—you keel him—you give him ze lead!”

Dart's eyes were wide open now, and except for their slight fixity of expression he looked wide awake. He stepped quickly up to the unsuspecting invalid, seized him by the nose, and tweaked it viciously. Fanton, gritting his teeth in pain, struck out wildly with open hand and knocked Dart off his feet. He was not hurt—I knew that—but he lay twitching all over for a moment, and then arose, still full of tremors, utterly bewildered, but awake.

Braisted came to his senses and ordered the scoundrel forward. He went, slouching and grinning, while Fanton, as bewildered and remorseful as a dyspeptic may be, apologized profusely to Dart—who only shuddered and turned away. Braisted and myself assisted the victim to a chair. Later, he took to his berth, and on the run down to Newport I had on hand the worst case of nervous shock that ever came into my practise. He knew nothing of what had occurred from the time the Frenchman had approached him until he found himself on the deck, wincing under the open-handed blow that had floored him. And in spite of Fanton's genuine sorrow and remorse, he would not, could not, forgive him. He left for New York by train at Newport, and here the Frenchman was discharged. I do not think they met again.

I received significant reports on De Cler when I investigated his standing on board. One was from Braisted, who admitted that he felt slightly dizzy when he talked with him. Another came from Fanton, who said that having risen early that day, he had gone to the galley for his morning drink of hot water, and had received impudence from the second cook. Another was from the first mate, who a few days before had gone for the cook, as he expressed himself, “hell bent for election,” to rebuke him more or less forcibly for spilling grease on the deck, and had found himself mildly informing the offender that it was not his fault. Still another, from the crew, was that the cook could not master every one forward; some were immune.

What was the nature of his power? That was the question that troubled me. It was not the subjectiveness of his victim, for Dart was strong, masterful, resistant, and able himself to hypnotize any ordinary judge and jury. It was perhaps some kind of material emanation, or a radiant energy, and like all such it decreased in force as the square of the distance. It had dazed Braisted at ten feet, stupefied Dart at three, and changed the mood of a big and angry first mate while he ran down its lines of force. Yet I had looked the fellow squarely in the eyes without feeling it.

II.

Fanton's dyspepsia improved somewhat on that sea trip, but a month of New York cookery threw him back, and I had a daily complaint from him. In one of these talks he showed me a newspaper account of two similar offenses against law and order, perpetrated in different parts of the city, by two persons of different social position—one by a drunken Frenchman named François De Cler in front of a sailors' boarding-house on Cherry Street; the other by a tall, well-dressed gentleman on Fifth Avenue. Each had pulled the nose of a policeman; but while the Frenchman had been clubbed into respect for convention and then jailed, the other had escaped arrest by profuse apologies to the officer, and by hurrying into a passing cab. His name was not known.

“Dart!” we both exclaimed together.

“And I've remembered since,” said Fanton, a little peevishly, “that part of the cook's insolence that morning consisted in twisting his fingers in my face, and calling me a 'polisman goddam'.”

“Heavens alive, man!” I exclaimed, “the suggestion to pull noses was not removed when you wakened him. Is this post-hypnotic suggestion? Is Dart still under a drunken lunatic's influence?”

“Don't know and don't care,” grumbled my dyspeptic. “I've my own troubles!”

“What did you say to anger the cook?” I asked, ignoring his plaint.

“Ordered him to give me some hot water.”

“You should have asked. A cook is king in the galley.”

I left him with his troubles and hunted for Dart; but he was not at his office, his home, or any of his clubs. Then I investigated the Frenchman, and found that he had been sent to Blackwell's Island for a month.

“He's down on de p'lice,” said the bartender of the sailors' boarding-house. “He wuz gittin' his head clubbed off wanst, an' he won out by hangin' on to one copper's nose an' shuttin' off his wind. It's his bug, see?”

With De Cler safe for a month, and Dart out of reach, I had time to devote a little thought to Fanton's ease. I came to the unprofessional but common-sense conclusion that a dyspeptic who would not diet was better off without treatment. So, with regard to his improvement on the club cruise, I ordered a long sea voyage and washed my hands of him.

Then, in his place, I had Dart for a patient. He entered my office one day in a state of evident mental collapse.

“What is the matter with me?” he asked in a choked voice. “I did it again—the third time! I do not feel it coming on; I seem to be my natural self; then I awake in the act. I am prevented from accomplishing it, of course, and this brings me back. But why, why do I want to pull a policeman's nose?”

“Because that was suggested to you when hypnotized by the French cook, and it was not removed before Fanton wakened you,” I said confidently. “Your case is simple, Dart. You want another operation, and a counter-suggestion.”

“Can you hypnotize me and give the suggestion?”

“No, it's out of my line. I'll send you to the specialists.”

Illustration: DART'S EYELIDS CLOSED, AND HIS HEAD SANK BACK. HE WAS ASLEEP.

I gave him a list of six physicians who used hypnotic suggestion in their practise, and he left with it. Then I wrote to all, asking results. As the days wore on they responded, one after another. He could not be hypnotized without the aid of drugs, and then refused the suggestion. This was not hypnosis—it was plain drugging. Dart came back to me with the same report.

“There is one man who can do it,” I said, “but he's in jail—the cook.”

“No!” he almost shrieked. “No! That wretch? Not to save my soul. I'll win yet. I'll conquer myself!”

“I hope you can,” I remarked.

“I'll tell you, doctor,” he said a little more calmly. “I feel confident that it is within the scope of my own will. I've passed dozens of policemen lately—even gone out of my way to pass them—and have not felt the impulse. And I've even warmed toward Fanton. We're friends, now. I know I'm tired out—utterly worn out with work and worry. I'll take a vacation—order the yacht ready for a Mediterranean cruise—yes, and on through the canal, across to Australia. And why not around the world, with a party of congenial friends? I've the time and the money.”

“Go ahead,” I responded. “Fresh air and change, with your own will power, may pull you out of this.”

A week later Fanton informed me on the street that he had employed his own private physician—a young chap just out of his hospital service, I afterwards learned—and that he would take him abroad with him. I sent my bill and thought no more of Fanton until I read their names as the only guests on Dart's steam-yacht, which that day had sailed for Gibraltar.

Then a gabbling mutual friend at the club, who had seen them off, retailed the news that Dart, just before stepping into his gig after Fanton, had tweaked the nose of the dock policeman, and, as the gig pulled away, had jokingly performed the same feat on the nose of Fanton. I sat up all that night studying psychology and the phases and vagaries of the subconscious mind. One of the things that appealed to me so strongly that I read it again and again was that a suggestion given to a hypnotized person is never completely ignored; but that if two are given together, the sub-conscious mind will perform the easiest task first, and take up the more difficult one later. This naturally brought me to a close consideration of the suggestion delivered to Dart, and little by little it came clearly to my mind, word for word as the cook had spoken:

“You pull him nose, and then you—ah—you keel him—you give him the lead!”

Here was a second suggestion with a vengeance! Dart had performed the first successfully, and might repeat it as long as Fanton would submit. But the second? He had warmed toward Fanton, whom he disliked intuitively, and had taken him—a man whose soul yearned for medicine—and a young fool doctor on a voyage around the world. Much might happen on that voyage.

But another point upon which all the authorities were agreed was that no suggestion to commit crime would avail against the ever-acting auto-suggestion of the subject—that an honorable man or woman could not be hypnotized into doing a dishonorable act. And this gave me comfort until I had reflected upon the peculiar nature of Dart's hypnosis, which was not of the kind upon which this presumption was based, but an obsession driven into his soul against his will. If the auto-suggestion of Dart's whole dignified life could not save him from the absurd and ridiculous, could it save him from crime? The thought was too disquieting.

Before breakfast I called up Braisted on the telephone, and explained. He was too busy to act, he said; but he placed his big, fast steam-yacht at my disposal, and by night she was off Twenty-Sixth Street, coaled and provisioned, waiting for me. But I wanted more—the Frenchman, and this involved a few days' delay, until his time expired. I interviewed my friend the bartender, and made the acquaintance of the three “runners” of the sailors' boarding-house. They were three as cheerful and unsavory scoundrels as I had ever looked upon, but they served me faithfully; for hardly had De Cler imbibed his second glass of stimulant on the evening of his release, than the drug he had taken with the first glass took effect, and he fell into the hands of my runners—later into mine. They delivered him at the starboard gangway shortly before midnight, and one of them also delivered himself of this gem of the language:

“Dat frozen eye o' his ain't no good, boss, if he's scared. A tap on de snoot puts it out o' c'mission, see?”

I saw. One of the fundamentals of all suggestion is a confident bearing. But the big first mate, as he bundled the inanimate form into the chart-room, remarked significantly:

“I'll remember!”

III.

By morning we were out of sight of land, heading the Great Circle course for Gibraltar. According to the captain and mate, both of whom were in my confidence, the Nautilus was larger than Dart's Javelin, and better by fifty horse-power, twenty revolutions, and three knots' speed; so we hoped to overtake her.

I interviewed De Cler as soon ag the drug was out of his brain. I found him sullen and uncommunicative until I had driven it into his understanding that if he did not answer my questions, and agree to do as I wished, I would have him dropped over the side in the night. He then opened his heart to me. He knew nothing of the nature of his strange power, nor of its effects when abused. Some men he could not influence in the least. Mr. Fanton and myself were in this class. He hated policemen because they invariably illtreated him. He had hated Mr. Fanton for abusing him at the galley door (Fanton, it seemed, had not told all). He was willing, if he could, to undo the harm done to Mr. Dart, provided he was not to be further punished. And to this I agreed, and supplemented the concession with the promise of a hundred dollars in cash if he succeeded. Then I released him, gave him the run of the after part of the deck, but forbade him to speak to any of the crew, or attempt to use his power on board.

I came to the conclusion, during this talk, that De Cler was of unsound mind; but a later interview with the mate convinced me that this could have no real bearing on the final result to be attained.

Illustration: THEY DELIVERED HIM AT THE STARBOARD GANGWAY SHORTLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT.

The mate was a practical man, not a theorist. In spite of my admonition to De Cler, he had again, perhaps unconsciously, turned his magnetic optics on the officer, to the latter's great discomfort. At their next contact the practical mate approached from behind, collared him, shook him about at the end of his long, powerful arm—literally wiped the deck with him—and then dared him to repeat the insolence.

The experiment succeeded. The Frenchman's power over the mate was gone.

“The runner was right, sir,” said the mate. “It's only bluff, after all. Frighten him, and he's no good.”

There is no need of detailing the events of that three months' chase of the Javelin from port to port. She proved faster than our captain and mate supposed. She was gone when we reached Gibraltar, but had left behind a young man, whom I met on the quay. He informed me that he had been private physician to Mr. Fanton, a guest of the Javelin, but had been discharged—on the instigation, he suspected, of the owner, who was undoubtedly crazy, but who still possessed a powerful hypnotic influence over Mr. Fanton.

This was interesting, and I questioned the youngster. Yes, Mr. Dart, crazy as he was, needed but to look into the eyes of Mr. Fanton, and the latter would go instantly to sleep. When roused, he would implicitly obey Mr. Dart, even to discarding the treatment that the young doctor had prescribed for his gastritis, and taking medicine provided by the owner. Yes, Mr. Fanton's dyspepsia had become acute gastritis. He was glad to be clear of the case.

The orders given—the suggestions—the implicit obedience? Why, he did not know; it was some kind of hypnotic power, no doubt, because he himself would get dizzy when Mr. Dart looked at him. He did not like it, and took no interest in such things. Mr. Dart was always saying to Mr. Fanton: “Give him the lead!” Pure lunacy, this.

I pondered long and heavily on what the youngster had said while we stormed down the Mediterranean under forced draft. Had De Cler imparted some of his peculiar power to Dart, as a strong magnet will magnetize a blank piece of steel? Was the contagion of insanity brought about in this manner? Was Dart getting De Cler's lunacy by telepathy? Was he insane?

IV.

This last question was answered by Dart himself when we boarded the Javelin in the Straits of Sunda, after a wild chase through the Suez Canal and across the Indian Ocean. We found her lying off Anjer Point, dropped anchor close by, and boarded her—the mate, the Frenchman, and myself—in the gig.

“I'm mighty glad you've come, doctor,” said the skipper in a low voice as he welcomed us at the gangway. “Things have gone all wrong aboard here, but I can't do anything.”

A ghastly, emaciated wreck of a man sat aft in a deck chair and stupidly regarded us. I could hardly recognize the features of Fanton. Dart stood beside him, almost as changed as was Fanton—thinner, with a strange look of curiosity and suspicion on his face, and the ordinary wrinkles of his forehead deepened and accentuated by the habitual lifting of his eyebrows. Too much white showed in his eyes; they looked like De Cler's.

This worthy—clean, fat, and tractable, in better mental and physical health, thanks to my care of him, than ever he had been in his life—stood behind me; and behind him stood the mate, ready, I knew, at a moment's notice to assert the domination of matter over mind, should he find it necessary.

Leaving them, I advanced toward Dart and Fanton. The expressionless stare of Fanton underwent no change, but Dart's eyes suddenly blazed with insane recognition, and he seized my extended hand.

“Didn't expect you so soon,” he chattered, “but you're welcome, old man—yes, you are! What did you come for, anyhow? I didn't need you. I've cured myself. I don't pull noses now—no, sir, no more of that! Cured myself! Pure will power! Some of the hair of the dog! And I'm curing Fanton. Oh, he was a sick man, doctor! I can put him to sleep any time I like, and then his gastritis doesn't bother him—he has a chance to get well, you see, and then—I've told him—told him—you know—he's going to give him the lead!”

I reached over my shoulder and beckoned to the Frenchman. As he approached, Dart's wild eyes rested upon him and grew smaller, while a look of abject terror came over his wasted features. He made no sound—only stood, drooping and cowering before the strange power inherent in the cook's personality. It was an uncanny exhibition—too much for the practical first mate.

“None o' that!” he said sharply, digging De Cler in the ribs.

It was a momentary respite for Dart. He backed away, pulled a pistol from his pocket, and, running to Fanton, placed it in one of the hands resting nervelessly on his knee. The fingers hardly clutched it, and Fanton gave no sign of understanding. He was deep in hypnotic sleep.

“Give him the lead—the lead, Fanton!” whispered Dart.

“Go ahead, De Cler,” I commanded, with one eye on that pistol. “Let us end this!”

De Cler was well instructed, and this time the mate let him alone. He brought his raised hands down before Dart's twitching face; as he had done months before, and the unhappy man's eyes almost instantly closed, though he remained standing.

“You will not nevair again pull any nose,” said the Frenchman. “You will not kill anybody—you will not give the lead. You wake up!”

Dart opened his eyes. Fanton gave a spasmodic grunt, and endeavored to rise, but sat down again, while the pistol slid between his knees and rested on the seat of the deck chair.

Illustration: NO DOUBT HE THOUGHT HE WAS AIMING AT DART, BUT THE BULLET WENT OFF ALMOST AT RIGHT ANGLES.

They had wakened together, but it was Dart who demanded my immediate attention. His face was a picture of utter bewilderment. He looked around at the shores of the strait, the dingy town half hidden in the bush, at the anchored ships and steamers, up and down the deck of his yacht, and then at me, whom he recognized seemingly for the first time.

“Explain this, please,” he said evenly, in the old-time voice that I knew. “This isn't the Nautilus—it's the Javelin. I thought we were at New London. Where are we now? Where's Braisted?” His eye rested on De Cler, who, his task done, was leaning against the rail. “Have I been hypnotized?”

His active mind had hit upon the truth, though of course with no regard to the lapse of time.

“Yes, Dart,” I answered, “but everything is all right. I'll explain presently. Sit down.” He obeyed me, and I turned to Fanton, who was leaning over, his hands clasped to his stomach, and groaning bitterly, while perspiration ran down his face. “What's the matter with you?” I asked jovially, as a matter of habit when asking that question; for I was perspiring myself.

“Oh, my stomach!” he wailed. “Shall I never get over this dyspepsia?”

“Dyspepsia?” I answered. “I heard it was gastritis. Open your mouth. Let me see your tongue.”

I looked into the cavern. It was a sight to startle a physician under any circumstances. It robbed me of my self-control and my caution. His gums were blue!

“Good Heavens!” I said. “You're poisoned. You're full of it! Hold up your hands!”

He held up both arms, but the hands hung down supinely. Only by an extreme effort could he move them, and then they shook and clutched almost beyond his control.

“He has been dosing you with acetate of lead for three months,” I said. “You've got lead colic and wrist drop. It's a wonder you're alive. Oh, he gave you the lead surely!”

“Poisoned!” gasped Fanton, stiffening up. “Who—who poisoned me?”

“Dart,” I answered. “But I can pull you through, Fanton. Don't worry!”

His mind, barely awake, could grasp nothing else. Dart, whom he never liked, had poisoned him. His indignation overcame the sense of pain. His fingers steadied, and his right hand moved down toward the pistol that only his sub-conscious mind knew of.

He cocked it and rose to his feet, while we scattered—all of us, even Dart. For the cocked weapon was being waved about by a palsied hand and arm animated through diseased motor nerves by a brain bent upon murder.

“Dart!” spluttered Fanton. “Poisoned me! Where is he? Stand still, there! Now, die, you dog!”

No doubt he thought he was aiming at Dart, but the bullet went off almost at right angles, and De Cler fell without a sound—shot through the heart. Fanton had obeyed the suggestion. He had given him the lead!

The investigation of the shooting by the authorities ashore, the disposal of the body, and the run home in the Javelin, during which I nursed two sick but sane men back to health, add nothing to the unsolved problems of this case. Only one thing more may be mentioned. Fanton, who swooned as the Frenchman fell, remembered nothing of the shooting, though he had a dim, dream-like memory of the voyage out with Dart. But why?