"He sleeps; it is well. Come away, my young friend; I have learned much, but the experience might have been dearly bought. Sometime I will explain." Noiselessly they withdrew to Edward's room. Edward was depressed.
"You have gained, but not I," he said. "The back of the kneeling woman was toward him."
"Wait," said Virdow; "all things cannot be learned in a night. We do not know who witnessed that scene."
Virdow had arisen and been to town when Edward made his appearance late in the morning. After tossing on his pillow all night, at daylight he had fallen into a long, dreamless sleep.
Gerald was looking on, and the professor was arranging an experimental apparatus of some kind. He had suspended a metal drum from the arch of the glass-room by steel wires, and over the upper end of the drum had drawn tightly a sheet of rubber obtained from a toy balloon manufacturer. In the base of this drum he inserted a hollow stem of tin, one end of which was flared like a trumpet. The whole machine when completed presented the appearance of a gigantic pipe; the mouthpiece enlarged. When Edward came in the German was spreading upon the rubber surface of the drum an almost impalpable powder, taken from one of the iron nodules which lay about on the surrounding hills and slightly moistened.
"I have been explaining to Gerald," said Virdow, cheerily, "some of my bases for hopes that vibration is the medium through which to effect that ether wherein floats what men call the mind, and am getting ready to show the co-ordinations of force and increasing steadily and evenly. Try what you Americans call 'A' in the middle register and remember that you have before you a detective that will catch your slightest error." He was closing doors and openings as he spoke.
Edward obeyed. Placing his mouth near the trumpet opening he began. The simple note, prolonged, rang out in the silent room, increasing in strength to a certain point and ending abruptly. Then was seen a marvelous thing; animated, the composition upon the disk rushed to the exact center and then tremulously began to take definite shape. A little medallion appeared, surrounded by minute dots, and from these little tongues ran outward. The note died away, and only the breathing of the eager watchers was heard. Before them in bas-relief was a red daisy, as perfect, aye, more nearly perfect, than art could supply. Gerald after a moment turned his head and seemed lost in thought.