"The question now is, to whom was it written?" We pondered that, to no effect. That Hawkins had certain letters which touched on the Wells affair, that they were probably in his possession in the Connell house, was clear enough. But we had no possible authority for trying to get the letters, although Sperry was anxious to make the attempt.
"Although I feel," he said, "that it is too late to help her very much.
She is innocent; I know that. I think you know that, too, deep in that legal mind of yours. It is wrong to discredit her because I did a foolish thing." He warmed to his argument. "Why, think, man," he said.
"The whole first sitting was practically coincident with the crime itself."
It was true enough. Whatever suspicion might be cast on the second seance, the first at least remained inexplicable, by any laws we recognized. In a way, I felt sorry for Sperry. Here he was, on the first day of his engagement, protesting her honesty, her complete ignorance of the revelations she had made and his intention to keep her in ignorance, and yet betraying his own anxiety and possible doubt in the same breath.
"She did not even know there was a family named Wells. When I said that Hawkins had been employed by the Wells, it meant nothing to her. I was watching."
So even Sperry was watching. He was in love with her, but his scientific mind, like my legal one, was slow to accept what during the past two weeks it had been asked to accept.
I left him at ten o"clock. Mrs. Dane was still at her window, and her far-sighted old eyes caught me as I tried to steal past. She rapped on the window, and I was obliged to go in. Obliged, too, to tell her of the discovery and, at last, of Hawkins being in the Connell house.
"I want those letters, Horace," she said at last.
"So do I. I"m not going to steal them."
"The question is, where has he got them?"
"The question is, dear lady, that they are not ours to take."
"They are not his, either."
Well, that was true enough. But I had done all the private investigating I cared to. And I told her so. She only smiled cryptically.
So far as I know, Mrs. Dane was the only one among us who had entirely escaped certain strange phenomena during that period, and as I have only so far recorded my own experiences, I shall here place in order the various manifestations made to the other members of the Neighborhood Club during that trying period and in their own words. As none of them have suffered since, a certain allowance must be made for our nervous strain. As before, I shall offer no explanation.
Alice Robinson: On night following second seance saw a light in room, not referable to any outside influence. Was an amorphous body which glowed pallidly and moved about wall over fireplace, gradually coming to stop in a corner, where it faded and disappeared.
Clara, Mrs. Dane"s secretary: Had not slept much since first seance. Was frequently conscious that she was not alone in room, but on turning on light room was always empty. Wakened twice with sense of extreme cold.
(I have recorded my own similar experience.)
Sperry has consistently maintained that he had no experiences whatever during that period, but admits that he heard various knockings in his bedroom at night, which he attributed to the lighting of his furnace, and the resulting expansion of the furniture due to heat.
Herbert Robinson: Herbert was the most difficult member of the Club from whom to secure data, but he has recently confessed that he was wakened one night by the light falling on to his bed from a picture which hung on the wall over his mantelpiece, and which stood behind a clock, two gla.s.s vases and a pair of candlesticks. The door of his room was locked at the time.
Mrs. Johnson: Had a great many minor disturbances, so that on rousing one night to find me closing a window against a storm she thought I was a spectre, and to this day insists that I only entered her room when I heard her scream. For this reason I have made no record of her various experiences, as I felt that her nervous condition precluded accurate observation.
As in all records of psychic phenomena, the human element must be considered, and I do not attempt either to a.n.a.lyze these various phenomena or to explain them. Herbert, for instance, has been known to walk in his sleep. But I respectfully offer, as opposed to this, that my watch has never been known to walk at all, and that Mrs. Johnson"s bracelet could hardly be accused of an attack of nerves.
IX
The following day was Monday. When I came downstairs I found a neat bundle lying in the hall, and addressed to me. My wife had followed me down, and we surveyed it together.
I had a curious feeling about the parcel, and was for cutting the cord with my knife. But my wife is careful about string. She has always fancied that the time would come when we would need some badly, and it would not be around. I have an entire drawer of my chiffonier, which I really need for other uses, filled with bundles of twine, pink, white and brown. I recall, on one occasion, packing a suit-case in the dusk, in great hasty, and emptying the drawer containing my undergarments into it, to discover, when I opened it on the train for my pajamas, nothing but rolls of cord and several packages of Christmas ribbons. So I was obliged to wait until she had untied the knots by means of a hairpin.
It was my overcoat! My overcoat, apparently uninjured, but with the collection of keys I had made missing.
The address was printed, not written, in a large, strong hand, with a stub pen. I did not, at the time, notice the loss of certain papers which had been in the breast pocket. I am rather absent-minded, and it was not until the night after the third sitting that they were recalled to my mind.
At something after eleven Herbert Robinson called me up at my office.
He was at Sperry"s house, Sperry having been his physician during his recent illness.
"I say, Horace, this is Herbert."
"Yes. How are you?"
"Doing well, Sperry says. I"m at his place now. I"m speaking for him.
He"s got a patient."
"Yes."
"You were here last night, he says." Herbert has a circ.u.mlocutory manner over the phone which irritates me. He begins slowly and does not know how to stop. Talk with him drags on endlessly.
"Well, I admit it," I snapped. "It"s not a secret."
He lowered his voice. "Do you happen to have noticed a walking-stick in the library when you were here?"
"Which walking-stick?"
"You know. The one we--"
"Yes. I saw it."
"You didn"t, by any chance, take it home with you?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Certainly I"m sure."
"You are an absent-minded beggar, you know," he explained. "You remember about the fire-tongs. And a stick is like an umbrella. One is likely to pick it up and--"
"One is not likely to do anything of the sort. At least, I didn"t."
"Oh, all right. Every one well?"
"Very well, thanks."
"Suppose we"ll see you tonight?"
"Not unless you ring off and let me do some work," I said irritably.