minutes past 5 this morning my wife and I saw something that wasn’t there, and saw it take the Lafayette cup, to boot!"
"Sacré nom d’un porc!" de Grandin swore. “What is it that you say? You saw that which was not there, and saw it take a cup of le Marquis de Lafayette? Non, non, non; it is I who am of the deranged mind. Friend Trowbridge, look to me. I hear remarks which this gentleman has not made!"
In spite of himself, Kinnan laughed at the little Frenchman’s tragic face. "I’ll be more explicit," he promised, seating himself opposite me and drawing a cigar case from his pocket. "Smoke?" he asked, proffering the case to each of us in turn.
"Now, here goes, and I don’t care whether you believe me or not, for I’m not at all sure I’m not a liar myself.
"The baby was fretful the entire early part of the evening, and we didn’t get him to sleep till well after midnight. Along about 5 o’clock he woke up on another rampage, and my wife and I went into the nursery to see what we could do.
"Ella, the maid, had gone to New York for the night, and, as usual, there wasn’t a drop of milk ready for the youngster. So Mrs. Kinnan and I trotted down to the dining room and I started to pasteurize some milk in the chafing dish. I can place the time exactly, for the library clock has been running erratically lately, and only yesterday I’d gotten it so it ran just ten minutes fast. Well, that clock had just struck half-past 5 when —like an echo of the gong—there came a crash at the window, and the pane was shattered, right before our eyes."
"Ah?" observed de Grandin, non-committally.
Kinnan shot him a sidelong glance as he continued, "It had been broken by a hammer."
"Ah?" de Grandin edged slightly forward on his chair.
"And whether you believe me or not, that hammer was held in a hand—a woman’s hand—and that was all! No arm, no body, just a hand—a hand that smashed that windowpane with a hammer, and floated through the air, as if it were attached to an invisible body, and took the Lafayette cup from the sideboard, then floated away with it!"
"A-a-ah!" de Grandin ejaculated on a rising accent, forgetting to puff at the cigar our caller had given him.
"Oh, I don’t expect you to believe me," Kinnan shot back. "I’d say anyone who told me such a story was full of dope, or something, myself; but I tell you I saw it—or thought I did—and so did my wife. Anyhow"—he turned to us with a gesture of finality—"the Lafayette cup is gone."
"On the contrary, Monsieur," de Grandin assured him gravely, "I do believe you, most implicitly. That same bodiless hand was seen at Monsieur Richards’ home last night."
"The deuce!" This time it was Kinnan who looked skeptical. "You say someone else saw that hand? Wh— why, they couldn't!"
"Nevertheless, my friend, they did," the Frenchman asserted. "Now tell me, this Lafayette cup, what was it?"
"It’s a silver wine goblet which belonged to my great-grandfather," Kinnan replied. "Intrinsically, I don’t suppose it’s worth more than twenty-five or thirty dollars; but it’s valuable to us as a family heirloom and because Lafayette, when he made his second visit to this country, drank out of it at a banquet given in his honor. I’ve been offered up to a thousand dollars for it by collectors."
"Morbleu!" De Grandin ground the fire from his cigar in the ash-tray and beat his fingertips together in a nervous tattoo. "This is a remarkable
