The Lone Hand (Pain)/Chapter 4
Though written in the form of serial, this story may be commenced by the reader at any point. Each chapter is complete in itself, and relates an absolutely independent adventure in the career of a penniless but brave and resourceful girl with no one to depend upon but herself. On the death of her father, a clever but shiftless literary ne'er-do-weel, she collects all the little property that is available and boldly sets forth to seek her fortune In London.
We see her struggling tooth and nail against the manifold dangers that beset a friendless girl in such a position, and pluckily surmounting one obstacle after another, never for an instant losing confidence.
No more exhilarating example could be put before our readers.
IV.—The Spirits of Hanford Gardens.
BEING still young and passably beautiful I had no wish to become a cynic. But the events of the next fortnight tended to make me so. I reverted to my old idea of making a conquest of some big business, firm in my belief that I had ideas and could make suggestions, and that these were worth money.
I still believe that ideas and suggestions are worth money—pots of money. I also believe that it is extremely difficult to get a guinea for the best of them. I tried an inflated and gigantic shop—one of the stores where you buy everything—and I asked to see the manager. I do not suppose I did see the manager, but I saw someone who was more or less in authority in a back office. There was a clerk at work in that office, and the clerk made me nervous. If I could have rung and had him removed I might have got on better. As I was pretty and well-dressed and did not look poor, and might have called to complain of the quality of the bacon supplied, the managerial person was at first extremely polite, and asked in what way he could serve me.
“I believe,” I said, “that this is a business in which new ideas are of value.”
“Yes,” he said suavely; “in fact, we've already noticed it.”
He was still polite; but one could detect a slight shade of irony.
“Well,” I said blunderingly, “I am a woman with ideas—heaps of ideas. I have thought about your business particularly, and I am full of suggestions. I believe them to be valuable, but before I hand them over to you I should like to come to some business arrangement—either in the way of a cash payment or, where practicable, a percentage on profits. In the latter case, of course, I should expect permission to inspect your books and”
At this moment the clerk, who had been writing at a side-table, with his back to me, went off like a soda-water bottle. I am inclined to think now that for some moments he must have been suffering severely.
“Shut up, or get out!” said the manager to the clerk.
The clerk, being unable to shut up, got out at once. Then the manager turned to me.
“Extraordinary!” he said seriously. “Most extraordinary. And yet you don't look as if you'd been drinking.”
Then I got up. “My proposal seems to you very silly,” I said. “And, because I was nervous, I put it all very badly. But I do not think that justifies you in behaving like a cad.”
He gave a jump in his chair. Being a person in authority, he did not get the chance to hear the plain truth about himself often.
“Nor do I,” he said reflectively. “I beg your pardon. Still, the thing was so outrageous. You must see, my dear young lady, that we could not dream for one moment”
“Thanks,” I said. “I won't trouble you any further.”
If I had stuck to that man and given him one or two of my ideas in advance, reserving the question of terms, I am not sure that I might not have done something. He would have liked to compensate for his rudeness, if he could have done it But, being proud, and angry, and an idiot, I walked out. My one idea was to get out of the awful place.
I tried two or three other shops, and began at the right end, but did very little better. One man listened to three of my ideas for Christmas novelties, very politely regretted that he could not avail himself of them, and showed me out. He used two of those ideas subsequently and made money with them—and I hope it may choke him. Another man listened to a still longer list and, while disclaiming any legal liability, offered me five shillings for my trouble.
So, as things were going rather badly, I was particularly glad of the windfall which came to me in connexion with the man behind the door, one of those queer things that cannot happen except in big cities, and which, some day or other, I may relate at length. For the present I will content myself by merely placing the fact on record without going into details. It is part of the fascination of London that every moment of the day and night something more wicked and more strange is happening than one could ever invent.
The windfall, which was of a most tangible description, tempted me to engage some help in the domestic work of my little flat. I cooked admirably, but I did other things less well, and they bored me; so I talked to my baker, a man of genial and mature wisdom, and he said that I couldn't do better than take Minnie Saxe if I could get her. So I set out to engage Minnie Saxe—and in the end Minnie Saxe engaged me.
She was a girl of sixteen, as flat as a board, with a small bun of sand-coloured hair, a mouth like a steel vice, and an eye like a gimlet. Given the sex and the opportunities, she would have been Napoleon. As it was she was a manager, given up to managing everything and everybody, including her own weak-kneed father. To see her was to know that she was capable; but I thought I ought to put the usual questions as to previous experience and character. She waved them aside.
“You don't want to trouble about that, Miss. I'm all right. If I say I'll do for you, I will, and you won't 'ave no fault to find. Now, then, what do you do for yerself—I mean for a livin'?”
“Well,” I said, “I have some independent means.”
“I see—money of yer own.”
“Yes; though not much. Then I had thoughts of some business. Lately I've been writing a little—stories for a magazine.”
“I see, Miss. Unsettled. Well, church or chapel?”
I fenced with that question discreetly, and she came off it at once to tell me, almost threateningly, that I couldn't have my breakfast before eight. I said that even so late an hour as nine would suit me.
“And what time should I 'ave finished doin' of you up if you didn't breakfast afore nine? That wouldn't do, neither. Well, I shall be there soon after seven. You'll 'ave your breakfast at eight, and I shall go as soon as I'm through with what's wanted, I may look in in the evening again, but that'll be accordin'. And my money will be four shillin' a week. I can but try it.”
So I was engaged as mistress to Minnie Saxe, and I am glad to say that I gave satisfaction. On the first morning, just before she went, she asked candidly if there was anything I “wanted done different,” and the few suggestions which I made were never forgotten. “And there's just one thing,” she said at the door. “If my fawther comes round 'ere subbin'—I mean, wanting a shillin' or two o' my money what's comin'—'e ain't to 'ave nuthink. If 'e says I sent 'im, jest tell 'im 'e's a liar.”
“Do you have trouble with your father?”
“Should do, if I took my eye off of 'im. 'E's afride of me.”
I could understand that. I tried to say something delicate and sympathetic about the widespread evils of intemperance. Minnie Saxe looked puzzled.
“Watcher mean, Miss? Drink? Why, 'e's a lifelong teetotal. No, it's sweets as 'e can't keep aw'y from—sugar an' choclit, an' pyestry, and ice-creams from the Italyuns. 'E's no better nor a child—mikin' 'isself a laughin'-stock an' wyestin' 'is money. And if I don't give 'im none for such truck, 'e's as cunnin' as a cartload of monkeys about gettin' it. That's why I dropped you that word o' warnin'.”
The word of warning was wanted. Her father called a few days later to say that Minnie had asked him to look in on his way back from work to ask the kindness of sixpence in advance as they had friends to supper. He was a fat little man with a round, innocent face, and really looked much younger than his daughter. I lectured him severely, and he made no defence. “I did think that sixpence was a cert,” he said sadly. “But there—she don't leave one no chawnst.”
I consoled him with a large slice of cake. But unfortunately Minnie found him in the street in the act of devouring it. “And,” she told me, “of course I knowed that kike by sight. And a pretty dressin'-down I give 'im fur 'is cadgin' wyes.” He worked for a bookbinder when he could get a job, and was also intermittently a house-painter and a night-watchman.
I got on very well with Minnie. She shopped admirably and got things cheaper and better than I had ever done. Owing to her fine independence of character she was occasionally rude; but there was always a penitential reaction; she did not apologise or even allude to the past, but for a few days she would call me “m'lady,” give me more hot water than usual in the morning, and bring every bit of brass in the place to a state of brilliant polish that seemed almost ostentatious. She respected my cooking and despised my story-writing; and I am inclined to think she was right. “You can cook my 'ead off,” she said in a complimentary moment; but I never attempted that delicacy. The trouble with my stories was that I had not got my poor dear papa's style, and could not get it. The children in my stories were just as consumptive and just as misunderstood as in his; they forgave their mother, and saved the kitten from drowning, and died young. And the excessively domestic magazine that always accepted him almost always refused me.
I began to get rather nervous, I had given up the notion of capturing some big business by the sheer brilliance of my ideas. I had no business training and no familiarity with the ways of it. I was unproved, and firms would not let me begin at the top to prove me. Perhaps it was not unnatural, though I still feel sure that some of the ideas had lots of money in them, if only I could have found any backing. I did not make anything like enough by story-writing to pay my expenses, and in consequence I was eating up my capital. “Wilhelmina Caste!,” I said to myself severely, “this cannot go on.” I could not hope for a continual supply of windfalls. My hatred of the usual feminine professions, with thirty shillings a week as the top-note and a gradual diminuendo into the workhouse, was as strong as ever. Yet I questioned whether it would not be better for me to spend capital in learning shorthand and typewriting, worm my way into a good business-house as a clerk, and then trust to my intelligence to find or make the opportunities that would ultimately lead to a partnership. I wished I had someone with whom I could talk it over. But what Minnie Saxe said was perfectly true.
“You ain't get no friends, seemingly,” said Minnie Saxe.
“Yes, I have, Minnie, but not here. In London I'm playing a lone hand, as they say.”
“Well, it ain't right. And I sha'n t be lookin' in We'n'sday night, 'cos I've promised to do up Mrs. Saunders.” She always spoke of her employers as if they were parcels.
It is easy enough for a girl who is alone in London to make friends, but in nine cases out of ten they are not friends. The friend is not made, but arrives in the usual formal channels. And when these usual channels are closed, it is perhaps better to do without friends. Yet I had made one or two acquaintances.
One of them was a neat little woman in a brown coat and skirt. We had come across one another while shopping in the North End-road. One day when we were both in the grocer's shop her string-bag collapsed, and I assisted at a rescue of the parcels. She thanked me; she had a musical voice, and spoke well, with a slight American accent. After that we always spoke when we met; it was mostly about the weather, but gradually she told me one or two things about herself. She was married and had no children and wanted none. She liked old houses, and lived in one. “There are plenty of them in Fulham if you know where to look,” she added.
On the night that Minnie was “doing up” Mrs. Saunders I dined at a little confectioner's near Walham Green. That is to say, I had a mutton chop, a jam tartlet, and a glass of lemonade there. One took this weird meal in a little place at the back of the shop, just big enough to hold two small tables and the chairs thereof, and decently veiled by a bead curtain from the eye of the curious. I sat waiting for my chop and reading the evening paper when a rattle of the. curtain made me look up. In came the little woman in brown. She seemed rather bewildered at seeing me, said “Good-evening,” and modestly took her place at the other table. But she had clearly hesitated about it, and I could not seem too unsociable.
“Won't you cone and sit here?” I said. “Unless, of course, you are expecting anybody.”
“Thanks so much, I'm quite alone. I didn't know—I thought you might be waiting for a friend.”
I laughed. “No; I have no friends—in London, at any rate.”
“I am sure you have no enemies,” she said with conviction.
“I don't think I have. I'm all alone, you see. Do you often come here? It's a quaint little place.”
“Not very often. But to-night my husband is out—professionally engaged—he is a Spiritualist, you know. So I let my maid go out too, and locked up the house and came here.”
“So your husband is a Spiritualist? That sounds interesting. Does he see visions and make tables jump, and do automatic writing, and all those things? “
“Oh no! He has been for years a student of Spiritualism. And, of course, he is—as I am—a profound believer in it. He understands the best ways to conduct a séance, and mediums like to work with him for that reason, but he is not a medium himself. I am a medium—at least, I was.” She fiddled with a little pepper-pot on the table, turning it round and round. “Oh, I wish I were you!” she said suddenly.
I was astonished. “But why?” I asked.
“Well, the story is no secret if it won't bore you. It's known to many people already. Have you ever heard of Mr. Wentworth Holding?”
“Of course. You mean the financier and millionaire?”
“Yes. Well, he heard of my husband and of his medium Una. I was always known as Una. I have heard it said that these hard men of business are often superstitious. I should put it that they are shrewd enough to see that there is something beyond them. Mr. Holding wrote to my husband to ask him to find out the future of a certain stock. Now, that money-making kind of question is one which the spirits always dislike. As a rule they refuse to answer, or answer ambiguously. My husband did not expect much, but he gave me the question, and as soon as it was controlled my hand wrote, 'Heavy fall in three days.' My husband telegraphed this at once to Holding. The financier could not quite believe or quite disbelieve. He did not 'bear' the stock, but also he did not buy it—as in his own judgment he had intended to do. The fall took place, and he sent my husband the biggest fee we have ever received and said we should hear from him again.”
“But why does all this make you wish you were me?”
“That's soon told. Holding has written again and wishes to engage the services of my husband and his medium exclusively. My husband has warned him that the spirits will not continue to interest themselves in his business, but he says that he does not mind that, and that there are other things that interest him as much as business. The terms he offers are princely. The work would delight us both. And here comes the trouble—from the moment that I answered that question about the stock—perhaps because I answered it—I have lost power. My husband has searched London for a medium to take my place and can find none. Some of them drink, and very many of them cheat, and those who are decent and honest very often fail to get the results. And that is why I wish I were you; for I feel just as sure that you are an excellent medium as I am that you are good and above any kind of trickery. You won't think me impertinent? I've always studied faces, you know.”
“But how can I be a medium? I have never done anything of the kind in my life.”
“But that docs not matter—not in the very least. I am quite sure of what I say. I only wish you had some spare evenings, and wanted to make money, and could help us.”
“All my evenings are spare evenings, and I do want to make money. But I fear my help would be worth nothing.”
“Come and see, at least.” She glanced at her watch. “My husband will be back in a few minutes. We live at 32, Hanford-gardens—quite near here.” Perhaps she noticed the look of cautious hesitation on my face. “Or would you rather come later? You might prefer to”
“No.” I said. “I'll come now.” I confess that I felt rather curious. I was not in the least a believer in Spiritualism, but I did believe—and do still believe—that things happen for which no known law supplies the explanation.
No. 32, Hanford-gardens was a little box of a place with a small walled garden. It was an old house, and the tiny room into which my new friend brought me was panelled. The panels had been painted a dark green and the thick noiseless carpet was of the same colour. It struck me, I remember, that they must have given a good price for that carpet. The room was scantily furnished with a square table, a few solid mahogany chairs, and a couch in the recess by the fireplace. A man sat by the table, and in front of him was what looked like a glass ball—the size of a cricket-ball—resting on a strip of black velvet. He rose as we came in. The light was dim—for the room was lit only by one small shaded lamp in a sconce on the wall—but I could see that he was a gaunt man of forty, hollow-eyed, with a strong blue chin, looking like a tired actor.
I had already given my new acquaintance my name, and learned that she was Mrs. Dentry. She presented her husband, and in a few words explained the situation. He had a pleasant voice, and rather a dreamy, abstracted manner.
“It is very kind of you,” he said hesitatingly. “I do not know, of course, if you have a spiritual power, and one meets with many dis appointments—as I have already done this evening. Still, one can try.”
“My husband,” said Mrs. Dentry in explanation, “has been to-night to see a medium who professed to get most wonderful results. So he was no good, Hector?”
“Worse than that. Conjuring tricks—and not even new conjuring tricks.”
Then he turned to me with a host of rapid questions, and seemed satisfied with my answers. “We may have no results, but at any rate there will be no trickery.” He glanced at his watch. “Unfortunately, I have to go out for half an hour to see a client of mine. But my wife knows what to do—you will be able to make your first experiments without me.”
He went out, and presently I heard the front door bang. Mrs. Dentry made me sit at the table and place my hands on it. “Wait,” she said, “until you are sure that the spirits are present, and then ask them aloud to raise the table from the floor.”
She went over to the other end of the room and turned out the lamp; then she lit a lamp that gave a little blue flicker, by which I could distinguish nothing except the face of Mrs. Dentry standing beside it.
For a few moments nothing happened; then loud raps came from all parts of the room, the pictures rattled on the walls, and a cold wind blew sharply across my face and hands. I was astounded. Mrs. Dentry had not moved from her position at the other end of the room, and I could just see that she was smiling.
“I knew it would be all right,” she said softly. “Go on, please.”
“If there are spirits here,” I said and somehow the voice hardly sounded like my own—“I ask them to raise this table from the ground.”
Very gradually I felt the table—which was fairly solid and heavy—begin to rise. It rose about two feet in the air, and remained suspended. I pressed on it with my hands, and could not force it down. After a moment or two it fell to the ground with a bang and I removed my hands.
“That will do,” I said faintly, and Mrs. Dentry struck a match and relit the lamp. Then she and I sat on the sofa and talked. She said that I was wonderful, and must certainly come and help them. If she might mention terms, she knew that her husband would pay a guinea for each sitting; at any rite, I must come while the Wentworth Holding business was on. She urged that I owed it to myself to develop my marvellous powers. As she was talking, I heard the click of a key in the front door, and Mr. Dentry entered, his hat and gloves still in his hands.
“Well?” he said eagerly. “Did you get anything?”
“Anything?” said his wife. “Everything. Miss Castel is a really wonderful medium.”
We talked on for some time. I would promise them nothing definitely. But I gave them my address, and said that I would probably come once again, at any rate. They were in despair that I would not give them any further assurance, but I was obstinate. I regarded the whole thing with a curious mixture of curiosity and repulsion.
•••••
Next morning Mrs. Dentry called to see me. Wentworth Holding was sending a man of science that night to examine into the whole thing; it was essential that I should be there.
“If I go,” I said, “I do not want my name given.”
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Dentry; “you will be addressed as Una.”
“Then,” I said, “Mr. Holding's tame investigator would be made to believe that I was the same medium that foretold the fall of the stock. I don't like that.”
“True,” said Mrs. Dentry; “I hadn't thought of that. It doesn't really much matter. But you'd better be called Una all the same; there's no cheating about it, because you're ever so much better than the original Una.”
“I don't think so. This morning, for instance, I tried the automatic writing and got nothing.”
“That's because you don't know how to set about it. My husband will show you. I myself failed scores of times at first. But as for the name, that must be just as you wish. You may be quite nameless if you like.”
“I should prefer it.”
“And please don't make any more experiments without us. If the conditions are not right you will get no results, and in any case you will be tiring yourself. We want you to-night to be as fresh and full of vitality as possible. If you could get an hour's sleep this afternoon it would be all the better.”
But I could not sleep that afternoon although I made the attempt. There were things in my interview with Mrs. Dentry that I did not quite like. I began to wish that I had never gone into the business at all.
•••••
I kept my appointment at nine that night, and the Dentrys' rather frowsy maid showed me into the room where I had been on the previous evening. Two men in evening dress stood by the fireplace. One was Dentry; the other was a short, solid-looking man with a closely clipped grey beard. At the table sat an elderly lady in black, with tight lips and a proud disapproving face.
Dentry thanked me for coming and explained that his wife could not be present. “She is, in fact, taking some of my regular work in order that I may be free.” The grey-bearded man was introduced to me as Dr. Morning. The elderly lady, to whom I was not presented, was his wife.
“The Doctor and Mrs. Morning are acting for Mr. Wentworth Holding,” said Dentry. “They are here to find out whether we cheat. I admit the unfortunate necessity of such an examination, and I may add that I welcome it. How will you begin, Dr. Morning?”
“With the walls.”
“Certainly,” said Dentry. He changed his position and leaned against one of the panels. The Doctor began with that panel, but neither there nor in the rest of his thorough examination of the room did he seem to come across anything of a suspicious character. This part of the business rather bored me. I wanted to get on and see what would happen.
The Doctor produced several straps with bells attached to them, and Mrs. Morning fastened a couple of these on my hands and wrists. She did this without speaking a word to me, and as she tightened the straps on my wrists she looked as if she wished they had been handcuffs. The Doctor secured Dentry in a similar manner. If either he or I moved hand or foot the sound of the bells would betray us. The Doctor, Dentry, and myself took our seats at the table in the usual way. Mrs. Morning sat at a little distance. All the lights were put out, but there was an unlit candle on a little table beside Mrs. Morning and she held a box of matches ready in her hand.
Almost immediately Dentry asked, in a clear, loud voice: “Is there any spirit here present?” From a far corner of the room came a low snarl as of some wild beast.
“The spirit present.” said Dentry, “is an evil spirit. It will be safer not to go on with the sitting.”
“We will go on, please,” said Dr. Morning.
“Very well,” said Dentry. “I disclaim all responsibility.”
“Of course,” said the Doctor. There was distinctly a note of contempt in his voice.
For a few slow minutes we went on sitting in silence, and then I heard a crash. Mrs. Morning struck a match and lit the candle at her side. I could sec that the Doctor had been thrown violently to the ground. “All right, all right,” he said to his wife. “I'm not hurt. Let me have a little more light, please.”
He remained seated on the carpet while his wife lit the lamp and Dentry stood over him expressing his regret for what had happened. The Doctor took no notice of Dentry. He put on a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and, as soon as the lamp was lit, put his head down so that his eyes were nearly level with the carpet. Then he got up briskly, brushing the dust from his clothes. “That will do,” he said. “We will be going now, and I will call on you, Mr. Dentry, to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, if that suits you.”
“Certainly,” said Dentry. “Any time you like, Dr. Morning.” He seemed to me to be trying to cover with an attempt at swagger some real uneasiness. He kept on pointing out to the Doctor how severe the test conditions had been.
I was left alone when they had passed out into the hall, but the Doctor came back almost immediately on the plea that he had left his spectacles.
He turned to me at once. “Know these people well?” he said.
“No; my acquaintance with Mrs. Dentry was a chance one.”
“Done this kind of thing often before?”
“Only once, on the one occasion when I was here before. Mrs. Dentry told me I was a medium.”
“She would,” said the Doctor grimly. “Well, you're not. You'd better leave it.”
“I will.”
“I believe,” he said meditatively, “you are all right. Good-night.” And he held out his hand to me. I followed him into the hall, and I noticed that he did not shake hands with Dentry.
After the Doctor and his wife had gone, Dentry pressed me to wait for a few minutes to see his wife. She would be certain to return in a few minutes.
I refused, and I also refused to let him escort me home. But, as it chanced, I had an escort all the same. For just outside in the street I happened to meet Minnie Saxe.
“I didn't know you went to that place, Miss,” said Minnie Saxe severely.
“What's the matter with it?” I asked. And Minnie Saxe told me what was the matter with it.
•••••
After breakfast next morning I sat and thought it over. Minnie Saxe and her father had been employed as caretakers at 32, Hanford-gardens. Her father also had been employed to repaint some of the rooms. Thus Minnie Saxe knew that the wainscot in the recess on the left of the fireplace in the front room was removable. It was impossible for anyone in the front room to detect this. On that side it appeared to be tightly nailed and solid. But anyone in the back room could slide a couple of bolts and find a way open into the front room. Also, nobody knew how Mr. and Mrs. Dentry made their money. Also, Mr. Dentry drank. And it was Minnie Saxe's belief that they were engaged in the manufacture of false coin.
It was all quite clear to me now. The Dentrys had required an accomplice. And an accomplice is a very dangerous person. If they could get some simple honest fool, like myself, to believe she was a medium and that she was in reality responsible for the manifestations, all would be safe. The accomplice would not even know that there was any trickery. On the first occasion when I was at Hanford-gardens Mr. Dentry had not left the house. A front door may shut heavily, though no one goes in or out. And I could see that Dentry had brought his hat and gloves into the room instead of leaving them in the hall, with a view to impressing me with the idea that he had not been in the house. Of course he had been in the back room and had entered by the wainscot. There was a reason doubtless for that thick and noiseless carpet. At the next sitting Mrs. Dentry had simply taken the place of her husband.
I knew that Dr. Morning had discovered the trick, but I could not make out how he had discovered it. He had removed a couch and examined that particular piece of wainscot with the utmost care, and I am sure that he had been perfectly satisfied with it.
In the meantime, what was I to do? Ought I to inform the police, or to write to Mr. Wentworth Holding, or to call on Dr. Morning? Great though my disgust with the Dentrys was, I had a stupid woman's reluctance to get them into serious trouble. As I was thinking over these things there came a tap at my outer door. Minnie Saxe had gone, and I opened the door myself. Mrs. Dentry stood there, looking very nice and fresh and neat.
“Have you just a few minutes to spare?” she said.
I asked her to come in.
“It's such a disappointment,” she began. “Dr. Morning was quite satisfied—indeed, under his conditions any trickery would have been impossible. But Mr. Holding has developed religious scruples. He won't go on. So I fear I have no more work of the kind to offer you. In fact, we are leaving for Liverpool to-morrow ourselves. We have heard of an opening there. But I have brought your fee.” She began fumbling with her purse.
“I shall not take your money, Mrs. Dentry,” I said. “I know exactly how the swindle is worked. Minnie Saxe, who was once employed by you as caretaker, is at present my servant. And she is a very observant and intelligent child. But there are two things I don't understand, and I should like you to explain them.”
Beyond the fact that she breathed a little quicker, Mrs. Dentry seemed quite unput-out. “What are your questions?” she asked.
“I have never given you my address. How did you know it?”
“My husband followed you home last night. He was afraid of any communication between you and the Doctor. He did not recognise Minnie Saxe, nor do I think he knows how much she has found out. And the other question?”
“How did Dr. Morning find out? I am sure his examination of the walls of the room told him nothing.”
“You are quite right,” she said. “It was only at the last moment that he discovered anything.”
“You mean that he saw you under the sofa, or that you had not had time to replace the wainscot?”
Mrs. Dentry smiled sadly. “Oh, I'm not quite so clumsy as that,” she said. “I was out in the other room and the wainscot was in its place, even before the match was struck.”
“You had left something behind you, perhaps—a handkerchief? “
“No; I don't leave things behind me. I wear a dress the colour of the carpet and specially suited for quick, athletic movement. It has no pockets in it. I'm not sure if you'd call it a dress at all. The thing was simplicity itself. I had warned my husband against it before. The carpet has a long, thick pile. When anybody crawls across a carpet of that kind they leave a trail that it does not take an Indian to discover. Dr. Morning chanced to think of that, and saw that the trail led directly under the sofa. He began this morning by saying to me, 'If you will not let me see the room on the other side of this wall, the whole thing is a swindle, and I shall give Mr. Holding my reasons for thinking so.' I tried to bluster it out. The game was lost, but I might at any rate have managed to put a good face on it. Unfortunately, my husband came in. He'd been drinking. It was too awful, and”
Here Mrs. Dentry collapsed suddenly and burst into tears.
It is not very easy to be severe with a woman who is crying because her husband is a blackguard and she is a failure. I, at any rate, am not clever enough for it. Before she went she gave me some curious scraps of her personal history. She and her husband had always been, and still were, firm believers in Spiritualism. When she wrote down the fall of the stock about which Mr. Holding was inquiring she was convinced that her hand was really controlled. In order to make a living, though, and to attract the public, more was required than could legitimately be obtained.
It was necessary to supplement. This struck me as a nice euphemism.
I gave a sigh of relief when she had gone. I was glad to be quit of that business. anford Gardens