But the Indians being ignorant of the
precautions thus taken, how was it that they had made no attempt on Lady
Verinder's house (in which they must have supposed the Diamond to be)
through the whole of the interval that elapsed before Rachel's birthday?
In putting this difficulty to Mr. Murthwaite, I thought it right to add
that I had heard of the little boy, and the drop of ink, and the rest of
it, and that any explanation based on the theory of clairvoyance was
an explanation which would carry no conviction whatever with it, to MY
mind.
"Nor to mine either," said Mr. Murthwaite. "The clairvoyance in
this case is simply a development of the romantic side of the Indian
character. It would be refreshment and an encouragement to those
men--quite inconceivable, I grant you, to the English mind--to surround
their wearisome and perilous errand in this country with a certain halo
of the marvellous and the supernatural. Their boy is unquestionably a
sensitive subject to the mesmeric influence--and, under that influence,
he has no doubt reflected what was already in the mind of the person
mesmerising him. I have tested the theory of clairvoyance--and I have
never found the manifestations get beyond that point.
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