Deductive Methodology
Being so obviously influenced by Arthur Conan Dolye and Sherlock Holmes, Thomas Carnacki's investigative process is vitally important to William Hope Hodgson's tales. Holmes and Watson's exhaustively logical and scientific method provides a supportive base for Sherlock's almost supernatural intellect. In the Carnacki tales WHH takes this to almost to an extreme by using similar rational detail to exclude all but the most impossible of explanations.
The initial task is to establish the presence of a real ghost and rule out any human 'fakery'.
"In the morning, I went along to the room. I found the seals on the door intact. Then I went in. The window seals and the hair were all right; but the seventh hair across the great fireplace was broken. This set me thinking. I knew that it might, very possibly, have snapped, through my having tensioned it too highly; but then, again, it might have been broken by something else. Yet, it was scarcely possible that a man, for instance, could have passed between the six unbroken hairs; for no one would ever have noticed them, entering the room that way, you see; but just walked through them, ignorant of their very existence. "I removed the other hairs, and the seals. Then I looked up the chimney. It went up straight, and I could see blue sky at the top. It was a big, open flue, and free from any suggestion of hiding places, or corners. Yet, of course, I did not trust to any such casual examination, and after breakfast, I put on my overalls, and climbed to the very top, sounding all the way; but I found nothing.
"Then I came down, and went over the whole of the room — floor, ceiling, and walls, mapping them out in six-inch squares, and sounding with both hammer and probe. But there was nothing abnormal.
"Afterwards, I made a three-weeks search of the whole castle, in the same thorough way; but found nothing. I went even further, then; for at night, when the whistling commenced, I made a microphone test. You see, if the whistling were mechanically produced, this test would have made evident to me the working of the machinery, if there were any such concealed within the walls. It certainly was an up-to-date method of examination, as you must allow. "
Material Weapons
"Then I tested the action of my revolver carefully. though I
had little thought that it would be needed. Yet, to what extent materialisation
of an ab-natural creature is possible under favourable conditions, no
one can say, and I had no idea what horrible thing I was going to see
or feel the presence of. I might, in the end have to fight with a material
thing. I did not know and could only be prepared"
Gateway Of The Monster
Carnacki
seems rarely without his trusty revolver even though it rarely seems of
any actual use in the documented stories.
It is possible that the revolver proves itself in the many conventional cases that Carnacki occassionally refers to (in House Among The Laurels he refers to 'hundreds').
In situations when one more firearm would seem to make the situation even more dangerous, such as the extremely 'tooled up' Horse Of The Invisible, Carnacki seems to cling to his own pistol as a way of steadying his own nerves and fending off the 'creeps'. This comparatively graphic tale can be seen as perhaps Carnacki's Hound Of The Baskervilles and one scene sees upwards of five or six terrified Lancastrians armed to the teeth shooting blind in the middle of the night.
"We ran towards the sounds, yelling to the people not to to shoot for in the darkness and the panic there was danger also"
Aside from this Carnacki seems to have few reservations about such weapons and his specific mentioning of snatching "a heavy revolver" suggests he has several to match the occasion. Earlier in the same story he resorts even to using a knuckleduster and mentions some of his supernatural cases have been 'extraordinarily material'
Safe within the clean confines of his own "Experimenting Room" in The Hog, he uses an automatic pistol, suggesting this story is some time after the others and he is perhaps one of the many who doubted the reliability of early automatic waepons in the field.
Photography
The Thing Invisible includes Carnacki's
own experiments in photography
"You all know something of my experiements with 'Lightless Photography", that is, appreciating light. It was X- Ray work that started me in that direction."
Horse Of The Invisible finds Carnacki using a hand held camera with a flash. He also seems to be atempting spirit photography.
"After lunch I though I would take a few experimental photographs of Miss Hisgins and her surroundings. Sometimes the camera sees things that would seem very strange to normal human eyesight"
The Electric Pentacle
It can be seen that Carnacki really is just a Ghost-Finder, ony seeking to understand, explain or at the most flush out the source of the haunting in the hope it has a natural cause or solution.
His own overt atempts to challenge the 'Ab-human' using science are mostly concentrated on the perfection of his own device - The Electric Pentacle. First used in Gateway it uses the theories of colour described in the Sigsand to enhance a standard pentacle by incorporating a 'Spectrum defense' in the form of different coloured neon tubes. (Why this fabulously cinematic idea has never made it onto the screen is mystifying in itself) Essentially a supernatural shark cage, the initial versions Electric Pentacle are again another way of investigating rather than affecting the phenomena under study.
He seems aware of of its fallibility at all times however -
"and I began to think that I should have to risk an attempt to
stay the night in the room, in the Electric Pentacle. Yet, mind you, I
knew that it would be a crazy thing to do; but I was getting stumped,
and ready to do anything."
The Whistling Room
Counter Vibration Aparatus
Used in the Haunted Jarvee and aparently a development of theories of "induced vibrations" found in one of Harzans Monograph's. Consisting of a control panel, a trembler box and a vibrator dial this equipment seeks to set up a counter vibration to mask the "attractive vibrations" made by certain inanimate objects which attract psychic waves and serve to make the place or object act as a medium.
In the event is is used at sea in uncertain weather and within an electric pentacle and since the Jarvee sinks it would seems (with most of Carnacki's experiments) that it is only partially successfull.
There are several indications in the final story, The Hog, that indicate it takes place some time after the other tales. Carnacki's interest in The Lancet appears to be new, and his contacts with the medical proffession have not been mentioned before. His trusted revolver has become a new fangled automatic and he has at his disposal a more advanced set of technical aparatus.
Dream Recording
"A specially made camera, a modified form of phonograph with ear pieces instead of a horn..." The camera has a long roll of specially prepared paper ribbon in place of a film or plates and when the paper is removed and run through the phonograph it is possible to hear noises heard only in dreams.
Faced with the monster in The Hog, the aparatus is more than effective enough. Carnacki removes the ear pierces which convey the mesmerising nightmare with startling clarity.
The Spectrum Defense
It is only in the final Carnacki story, where Carnacki's ultimate version of the Electric Pentacle, refered to as 'The Spectrum Defense', atempts to actually control The Hog where the investigator atempts to graduate from 'Ghost-Finder' to a more active 'Ghost-buster'.
The extensive description of the the Spectrum Defense in The Hog shows that this new "defense" contains "focusing" and drawing qualities based on the use of colour.
It consists of seven vaccum tubes in a ring which radiate the following colours - red, organge, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Of them. Blue a good general defense, Yellow is neutral, Green a wonderful defense within limits, Orange highly attractive, Indigo dangerous by itself but in combinations is a very powerful defense. "Its a kind of colour organ on which I seem to play a tune of colour combinations that can either be safe or infernal in its effects. You know I have a keyboard with a separate switch to each of the colour circles"
In action the Spectrum Defense appears to work but since Carnacki once again is ultimately saved by outside forces it appears the level of Carnacki's technology is not keeping pace with his opponents. The very finality of The Hog suggests this approach may have ultimately been rather too ambitious given the technology of the time.
For more detail see Marcus Rowlands Carnacki Cylinders
