Mrs Roberts has been giving messages for half an hour or so. George spots people in the arena getting to their feet. But now they are not competing for a lost relative, or rising en masse to greet the spirit forms of loved ones. They are walking out. Perhaps the appearance of Emily Wilding Davison has been the last straw for them too. Perhaps they came as admirers of Sir Arthur's life and work, but are refusing to associate themselves further with this public conjuring trick. There are thirty, forty, fifty people on their feet, heading determinedly for the exits.

'I can't go on with all these people walking out,' Mrs Roberts announces. She sounds offended, but also rather unnerved. She takes a few steps backwards. Someone, somewhere, gives a signal, whereupon a sudden skirling blast comes from the vast pipe organ behind the stage. Is it intended to cover the noise of the departing sceptics, or to indicate that the meeting is being brought to an end? George looks to the woman on his right for guidance. She is frowning, offended at the vulgar way in which the medium has been interrupted. As for Mrs Roberts herself, she has her head cast down and her arms wrapped round herself, shutting out all this interference with the fragile line of communication she has established to the spirit world.

And then, the last thing George expects comes to pass. The organ suddenly cuts off in mid-anthem, Mrs Roberts throws her arms open, lifts her head, walks confidently forward to the microphone, and in a ringing, impassioned voice, cries,

'He is here!' And then again, 'He is here!'

Those on their way out stop; some turn back to their seats. But in any case, they are now forgotten. Everyone gazes intently at the stage, at Mrs Roberts, at the empty chair with the placard across it. The blast on the organ might have been a call to attention, a prelude to this very moment. The entire hall is silent, watching, waiting.

'I saw him first,' she says, 'during the two-minute silence.'

'He was here, first standing behind me, though separate from all the other spirits.'

'Then I saw him walk across the platform to his empty chair.'

'I saw him distinctly. He was wearing evening dress.'

'He looked as he has always looked in recent years.'

'There is no doubt about it. He was quite prepared for his passing.'

As she pauses between each brief, dramatic statement, George studies Sir Arthur's family on the platform. All of them except one are looking across at Mrs Roberts, transfixed by her announcement. Only Lady Conan Doyle has not turned. George cannot see her expression from this distance, but her hands are crossed on her lap, her shoulders are square, her carriage erect; head proudly high, she is gazing above the audience and out into the far distance.

'He is our great champion, here and on the farther side.'

'He is quite capable of demonstrating already. His passing was peaceful, and he was quite prepared for it. There was no pain, and no confusion to his spirit. He is already able to begin his work for us over there.'

'When I first saw him, during the two minutes' silence, it was as in a flash.

'It was when I was giving my messages that I first saw him clearly and distinctly.'

'He came and stood behind me and encouraged me while I was doing my work.'

'I recognized once more that fine, clear voice of his, which could not be mistaken. He bore himself as a gentleman, as he always did.'

'He is with us all the time, and the barrier between the two worlds is but a temporary one.'

'There is nothing to fear in passing over, and our great champion has proved it by appearing here amongst us tonight.'

The woman on George's left leans across the velvet armrest and whispers, 'He is here.'

Several people are now on their feet, as if to get a better view of the stage. All are staring fixedly at the empty chair, at Mrs Roberts, at the Doyle family. George feels himself being caught up again in some mass feeling that transcends, that overwhelms the silence. He is no longer seized by the fear he had when he thought his father was coming for him, nor the scepticism when Emily Davison was putting in her appearance. He feels, despite himself, a kind of cautious awe. This is, after all, Sir Arthur they are speaking of, the man who willingly used his detective abilities on George's behalf, who risked his own reputation to rescue George's, who helped give him back the life that had been taken from him. Sir Arthur, a man of the highest integrity and intelligence, believed in events of the kind George has just been witnessing; it would be impertinent for George in this moment to deny his saviour.

George does not think he is losing either his mind, or his common sense. He asks himself: what if there was in the proceedings that mixture of truth and lies he earlier identified? What if some parts of what has happened are charlatanry, but others genuine? What if the theatrical Mrs Roberts, despite herself, was truly bringing news from distant lands? What if Sir Arthur, in whatever form or place he now might be, is obliged, in order to make contact with the material world, to use as a conduit those who also deal in fraud some of the time? Would that not be an explanation?

'He is here,' the woman on his left repeats, in a normal, conversational voice.

Then the words are taken up by a man a dozen seats away. 'He is here.' Three words spoken in an everyday tone, intended to carry a mere few feet. But such is the charged air in the hall that they seem magically amplified.

'He is here,' someone up in the gallery repeats.

'He is here,' responds a woman down in the arena.

Then a man at the back of the stalls suddenly bellows, in the tone of a revivalist preacher, 'HE IS HERE!'

Instinctively, George reaches down at his feet and pulls his binoculars from their case. He crams them to his spectacles and tries to focus on the platform. His finger and thumb nervously twirl past the proper focus in each direction, then finally land on the mid-point. He examines the ecstatic medium, the empty chair, and the Doyle family. Lady Conan Doyle has remained, since the first announcement of Sir Arthur's presence, fixed in the same attitude: straight-backed, square-shouldered, head up, gazing out with – as George can now see – something resembling a smile on her face. The golden-haired, flirtatious young woman he had briefly met has grown darker-haired and matronly; he has only ever seen her at Sir Arthur's side, which is where she still claims to be. He moves the glasses back and forth, to the chair, the medium, the widow. He finds his breath coming quickly and harshly.

There is a touch on his right shoulder. He drops the binoculars. The woman shakes her head and says gently, 'You cannot see him that way.'

She is not rebuking him, merely explaining how things are.

'You will only see him with the eyes of faith.'

The eyes of faith. The eyes Sir Arthur brought with him when they met at the Grand Hotel, Charing Cross. He had believed in George; should George now believe in Sir Arthur? His champion's words: I do not think, I do not believe, I know. Sir Arthur carried with him an enviable, comforting sense of certainty. He knew things. What does he, George, know? Does he finally know anything? What is the sum of knowledge he has acquired in his fifty-four years? Mostly, he has gone through his life learning and waiting to be told. The authority of others has always been important to him; does he have any authority of his own? At fifty-four, he thinks a lot of things, he believes a few, but what can he really claim to know?

The cries of witness to Sir Arthur's presence have now died down, perhaps because there has been no answering acknowledgement from the stage. What was Lady Conan Doyle's message at the start of the service? That our earthly eyes cannot see beyond the earth's vibration; that only those with the God-given extra sight, called clairvoyance, would be able to see the dear form in our midst. It would have been a miracle indeed if Sir Arthur had managed to endow with clairvoyant powers the various people still on their feet in different parts of the hall.