Part 29

I was quite numb from the waist down, from my tumble and from running, and it was some time before I could breathe quietly. Suddenly Sperry fell to laughing.

“I wish you could have seen yourself in that barrel, and crawling out,” he said.

We reached Mrs. Dane’s, to find that Miss Jeremy had already arrived, looking rather pale, as I had noticed she always did before a seance. Her color had faded, and her eyes seemed sunken in her head.

“Not ill, are you?” Sperry asked her, as he took her hand.

“Not at all. But I am anxious. I always am. These things do not come for the calling.”

“This is the last time. You have promised.”

“Yes. The last time.”

It appeared that Herbert Robinson had been reading, during his convalescence, a considerable amount of psychic literature, and that we were to hold this third and final sitting under test conditions. As before, the room had been stripped of furniture, and the cloth and rod which formed the low screen behind Miss Jeremy’s chair were not of her own providing, but Herbert’s.

He had also provided, for some reason or other, eight small glass cups, into which he placed the legs of the two tables, and in a business-like manner he set out on the large stand a piece of white paper, a pencil, and a spool of black thread. It is characteristic of Miss Jeremy, and of her own ignorance of the methods employed in professional seances, that she was as much interested and puzzled as we were.

When he had completed his preparations, Herbert made a brief speech.

“Members of the Neighborhood Club,” he said impressively, “we have agreed among ourselves that this is to be our last meeting for the purpose that is before us. I have felt, therefore, that in justice to the medium this final seance should leave us with every conviction of its genuineness. Whatever phenomena occur, the medium must be, as she has been, above suspicion. For the replies of her ‘control,’ no particular precaution seems necessary, or possible. But the first seance divided itself into two parts: an early period when, so far as we could observe, the medium was at least partly conscious, possibly fully so, when physical demonstrations occurred. And a second, or trance period, during which we received replies to questions. It is for the physical phenomena that I am about to take certain precautions.”

“Are you going to tie me?” Miss Jeremy asked.

“Do you object?”

“Not at all. But with what?”

“With silk thread,” Herbert said, smilingly.

She held out her wrists at once, but Herbert placed her in her chair, and proceeded to wrap her, chair and all, in a strong network of fine threads, drawn sufficiently taut to snap with any movement.

He finished by placing her feet on the sheet of paper, and outlining their position there with a pencil line.

The proceedings were saved from absurdity by what we all felt was the extreme gravity of the situation. There were present in the room Mrs. Dane, the Robinsons, Sperry, my wife and myself. Clara, Mrs. Dane’s secretary, had begged off on the plea of nervousness from the earlier and physical portion of the seance, and was to remain outside in the hall until the trance commenced.

Sperry objected to this, as movement in the circle during the trance had, in the first seance, induced fretful uneasiness in the medium. But Clara, appealed to, begged to be allowed to remain outside until she was required, and showed such unmistakable nervousness that we finally agreed.

“Would a slight noise disturb her?” Mrs. Dane asked.

Miss Jeremy thought not, if the circle remained unbroken, and Mrs. Dane considered.

“Bring me my stick from the hall, Horace,” she said. “And tell Clara I’ll rap on the floor with it when I want her.”

I found a stick in the rack outside and brought it in. The lights were still on in the chandelier overhead, and as I gave the stick to Mrs. Dane I heard Sperry speaking sharply behind me.

“Where did you get that stick?” he demanded.

“In the hall. I--”

“I never saw it before,” said Mrs. Dane. “Perhaps it is Herbert’s.”

But I caught Sperry’s eye. We had both recognized it. It was Arthur Wells’s, the one which Sperry had taken from his room, and which, in turn, had been taken from Sperry’s library.

Sperry was watching me with a sort of cynical amusement.