Presently I began to sense that my journey was almost at an end. The light on the walls of the tunnel eventually expanded so that I felt bathed in it. Indeed, for one curious second I fancied myself to be part of the light itself. I could no longer perceive anything around me but for this bright white glow. I remember quite distinctly thinking, ‘That’s it! The penny showman has killed me. Now I shall see what Heaven is like.’ I did not think of the other place. And, after a short time, it did appear that I had awoken in a heavenly landscape. I did not find myself confronting Saint Peter, however. Indeed, there were no other beings, mortal or otherwise, to be discerned on the softly rolling meadow I saw before me. Under a bright blue but curiously sunless sky, I observed grass, flowers and trees of species to be found anywhere in the nineteenth-century English countryside. I admit that at that moment I experienced the most profound sensation of peace, which was most welcome after the creeping dread with which I had become familiar at the start of my journey.
How long had I been travelling? I had no idea. In the depths of my mind something gnawed at me with persistent little teeth. Did I have an assignment in this place? I recollected the fair-ground doctor and his strange potion, and then the reason for my journey arrived once again in my mind. I was here to see the workings of Pepper’s Ghost, although I had no idea of how this could be achieved, and also felt that my appetite for solving this mystery was a very slight pang of hunger indeed in comparison with the greedy desire I now felt to solve the far bigger mystery with which I had been presented: where was I and how had I come to be there?
At the same moment that my assignment had reappeared in my mind, so a small piebald horse had appeared in the meadow to the right of my current position. The horse presently came and nuzzled at my hand, and, noticing that it was fully tackled, I understood that I was supposed to ride it. I have some experience as an equestrian and I saw no option than to insert my foot into the stirrup, swing myself onto the animal and take the harness. With only the merest of nudges, the horse moved gracefully forward. Again I had the sensation that I knew something I could not know, and fancied that the horse would take me to the place I needed to go. This sensation was a powerful one and so I let the horse trot onwards, towards the brow of a small hill. All around me was calm and tranquillity and I felt as if I could remain in this place for ever and not want for anything. Yet I felt compelled to complete my assignment.
I soon became aware of several dwellings ahead of me. As my horse drew closer I saw that there was indeed a small hamlet of cottages clustered before a vast and tangled forest. I understood that I was supposed to examine these dwellings and so I dismounted from my horse and tethered him outside the first cottage. This was a dark little place, with a garden overgrown with brambles and thick, twisted trees. Even before I saw the name on the gate, I knew that this was the fairground doctor’s house. The next place was plainer, with a whitewashed exterior and a name on the gate that I did not recognise. Something told me to enter this gate and I did so. Again, this something that seemed to speak from within my mind told me that the door would be unlocked, and so I entered without knocking, knowing that according to the customs of this place this action would not be considered aberrant.
Then I experienced the most peculiar sensation of all. Language almost fails me when I try to formulate this sensation in words. The closest approximation is this: imagine stepping not into another man’s shoes but, rather, into his soul. Even as I write this, that paltry description appears feeble in comparison to the odd, but not at all uncomfortable sensation of expansion that I felt as whatever is ‘I’ grew, as if from a seed, into whatever was ‘him’ and the two of us became one. All at once I intuited what had occurred. Inconceivable and impossible though it may appear, I had entered the mind of another. I had entered the mind of the illusionist Mr. William Hardy, proprietor of Hardy’s Ghost Illusion and Theatre.
I can assure the reader that the telepathic intercourse one has with another is in no way partial, vague or insubstantial. For, although I still seemed to carry with me the portmanteau of my own being, once inside this man’s mind I had the palpable sense that I existed not in his place, but alongside him. Much though it vexes me to write these words, for I am a man who does not believe in ghosts, phantoms and the so-called fourth dimension of Zollner and others, I have no doubt that I shared the mind of this man. I could think what he thought, I knew what he knew, and, for the time that I remained a guest in his being, I experienced what he experienced.
He (although it seemed to me that ‘I’ did all that follows, I will not confuse the reader here with the first person singular or, worse, the plural) was hungry; this was the first sensation of which I became aware. Of course, I experienced the same hunger, now that I was inhabiting the same being, and, without thinking what I was doing, I cast my own mind back to the last time I dined. I quickly perceived something reminiscent of two transparent images placed on top of one another. Of course, this does not adequately explain the sensation but words will not allow me a fuller description. I saw, or felt, myself taking luncheon at the Regency Hotel, but at the same time experienced William Hardy, who, I understood, likes to refer to himself in his own mind as Will, or even ‘Little Will’, a pet name given to him by his mother, sitting down to consume a steamed meat pudding wrapped in paper. It is with some difficulty that even I myself believe my own recollection as I write these words, but I certainly experienced the illusion of being able to taste the heavy, thick suet pudding and the dense brown gravy, as sweet as the meat inside. Nevertheless, I, or he, or we, still felt hungry. The meat pie was merely a memory and Little Will wanted his supper.
Before supper, Little Will had to pack up his ghost illusion. The fair would be departing the following morning and so everything would have to be carefully disassembled and stored in a large wagon. Will found the idea of this task rather overwhelming, as did I, and I quite understood his anguish and frustration as he barked orders at his underlings, wanting them to hurry this moment and take more care the next. I understood why he felt betrayed by his assistant Dan Roper, and I instantly knew that Peter, the boy helper, was too clumsy for this task. I do not believe that I shared William Hardy’s exact thoughts while the packing-up process was in progress; I was not ‘mind-reading’ in the crudest sense. Rather, I had access to his memories in the same way one accesses one’s own memories. Images came to me as fast as quicksilver. I saw, for example, the hapless boy Peter breaking a large sheet of glass, and was aware that this event had occurred at some time in the recent past. I saw Dan Roper creeping behind a grubby fair-ground tent with a woman. Then I saw Little Will with the same woman. Of course, I did not see him from above, like an omnipotent observer. I was his eyes, ears, nose and flesh as he coupled with this woman, barely a girl, whom I now knew to be called Rose.
I confess that I almost became lost in this new world, for, given access to another man’s thoughts, who would not roam endlessly within them? What anthropology or biology was this, that I was able to read another’s mind as if it were a play? I sincerely believed that the entire works of Shakespeare shrank in comparison with the tragedies, comedies, betrayals and desires of this one fair-ground entertainer. Still, however, I recalled my assignment. I was here, in the mind of William Hardy, to understand the ghost illusion that he peddled from country fair to country fair.
In an instant all was clear to me. I saw the intricate placing of the large, expensive sheet of glass, polished five times a day by Little Will himself. I saw it balanced on the stage, resting against a wall or structure behind. I saw, and understood, the forty-five-degree tilt. I had the most profound knowledge of the way the illusion worked, from the tilted glass to the actors underneath who danced in a projectionist’s light, thus creating images, like inverted shadows, to be reflected through the glass and onto the stage. I understood Little Will’s amazement when he himself first discovered the construction of these beings of light, and I recalled, as clearly as if thinking of a scene from my own past, the evening that Little Will opened the book that revealed the secrets of this illusion. I must say, however, that the sensation of reading a book in a man’s memory was a queer one, and although many passages were forgotten, and therefore appeared to be missing, I was able to read the most significant sections as if the book was