The Red Book Magazine/Volume 36/Number 6/Satan and the Spirit

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

 

Illustration: “Were you looking for a Spirit, sir?” he inquired. “She's in here.”

 

SATAN AND THE SPIRIT

BY E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

Illustrated by RAEBURN VAN BUREN

THERE was not the slightest manner of doubt that Mr. Joseph P. Cray was thoroughly enjoying himself. He sat on the ledge of his box at Covent Garden, his legs dangling in midair, a paper cap with streamers upon his head, and the full joy of living in his blood. At times he played weird ditties upon a tin whistle. At others he threw with unusual skill streamers of gayly colored paper halfway across the floor. His cheery, good-natured face was aglow with happiness. He exchanged greetings right and left with perfect strangers. He Was at once a notable and a popular figure.

“Yankee Doodle bought a poodle,” shouted the Shah of Persia as he passed with the Queen of Sheba.

“Har, har, har! Var, var, var! Rah, rah, rah!” yelled Mr. Cray.

Re little peal of soft laughter close to his ear startled him so he nearly lost his balance. A filmy gray figure, masked, was leaning by his side. She seemed to be enveloped by floating billows of misty tulle which at no place betrayed the dressmaker's art—a human body moving in a filmy cloud. Her eyes, upturned to his, seemed to Mr. Cray quite wonderful.

“I beg your pardon—were you laughing at me?” he asked.

“Of course I am,” a soft, mysterious voice answered.

“Guess I'm making some noise,” he reflected.

“I like it,” was the whispered reply. “Are you very happy?”

Mr. Cray was a little taken aback.

“Just trying to make the thing go a bit,” he explained with a wave of his hand. “Nothing like a noise at a show of this sort. I'm a peach at throwing these streamers. Have a try.”

The figure shook her head slightly but crept a little nearer to him. Mr. Cray was both attracted and intrigued.

“What might you represent?” he asked diffidently.

“I am a Spirit,” she confided. “This moment you see me; a moment later I shall have vanished.”

“Don't hurry,” Mr. Cray begged. “What about a bite of supper?”

“Spirits never eat,” was the reproachful reply.

“Or drink?” he suggested. “I've a few bottles of Mumm 1906 in here. There's some paté, too.”

Mr. Cray's attention was momentarily distracted by the passing of some recent acquaintances, with whom he indulged in a few vociferous amenities. When he had finished, he found to his dismay that his companion had vanished in a most mysterious fashion. He was conscious of a momentary pang of disappointment.

“Some voice, that,” he ruminated. “And eyes! Guess I'll get down and look for some of the crowd.”

He was on the point of descending when a soft tapping at, the door of the box caused him to change his mind. Somehow or other the tapping seemed to him as distinctive as the voice had been. He swung around and opened the door eagerly.

“Come right in,” he invited cordially. “Say, this is fine! Take a chair and I'll open some champagne.”

She floated in and seated herself, looking more than ever like a gray mist. Her eyes remained upon him. There was a sort of subdued rapture in her expression, as though she found something almost worshipful in the portly and corpulent figure of her host.

“How's that seem, young lady?” he asked finally. “A wing of chicken, paté and biscuits on the small plate, and a glass of the bubbly, eh?”

“It is very kind of you,” the Spirit replied. “I did not come here to eat. I came to be near you.”

“That sounds good,” Mr. Cray murmured, a little embarrassed—he was scarcely used to such complete conquests.

“You are so full of life,” she sighed, “so full of splendid and actual vitality. You remind me—ah!”

She broke off and attacked her chicken. She also sipped, and apparently approved of her wine. Mr. Cray cheered up. The Spirit business had been getting a little upon his nerves, and he welcomed these signs of indubitable humanity. He filled his own glass and raised it.

“Here's health, wealth and happiness!” he ventured in the words of a popular song.

The Spirit sighed but drank. Then she toyed pensively with her empty glass, which her host promptly refilled.

“Health, wealth and happiness,” she repeated, her eyes becoming mistier than ever. “I drink with you because you wish it, but these things are not for me.”

Mr. Cray, adopting the rôle of a man of respectful gallantry, possessed himself of her hand. He was ashamed to realize how relieved he was to find it warm and soft and human.

“See here,” he remonstrated, “aren't you overdoing this Spirit business a little? This is a dance, not a funeral. What about a turn on the floor when you've finished that? I'm not a great performer, but I guess there are others.”

She looked at him sadly. Her fingers still rested in his comfortable hand.

“I can only dance with one,” she sighed, “and you are not he.”

“That's too bad,” he protested, “especially on a night like this. Husband, eh? Lover?”

She shook her head more mournfully than ever.

“It is some one who claims me,” she declared, “who seldom lets me wander far out of his sight. He terrifies me—but I belong to him. Listen!”

Mr. Cray obeyed.

“I don't know as I can hear anything unusual,” he confessed. “Music and laughter and popping of corks sounds a pretty good chorus to me. Come,” he went on, glancing at his watch, “it's close on midnight—what about taking that mask off, eh?”

He stretched out his hand, but she eluded him, flitting away into a corner of the box. Once more she listened.

“Can't you hear—a sound like the rushing of the angry wind, like footsteps upon wool, up in the hills? A voice—listen!”

There certainly was a voice, although what it was saying was undistinguishable. A gallant Satan in brilliant scarlet was standing in front of the box. Mr Cray addressed him affably.

“Were you looking for a Spirit, sir?” he inquired. “She's in here. Step right up and have a glass of wine. ⁠—I guess this is your friend,” he added, turning round to his guest.

Illustration: “Say, what's doing here?” Mr. Cray asked uneasily.

Satan made no reply. His eyes were fixed upon the shrinking figure in the corner of the box. As though in obedience to an unspoken command, she passed out and joined him. A moment later they were gliding across the floor, their feet moving to the music—a strange, almost sinister combination. Mr. Cray wiped his forehead and stepping out onto the floor, passed his arm round the waist of the first disengaged damsel he came upon, and plunged into the revels. But nowhere could he see any sign of Satan and the Spirit.

It was one of the most successful balls of the season, and till midnight the fun waxed fast and furious. Mr. Cray found some friends and entertained hospitably. His curiosity concerning the acquaintance of the early part of the evening, however, remained unabated, and he scanned in vain every one of the boxes and every corner of the dancing-floor for a sign of her (illegible text) gray draperies or the more easily distinguishable scarlet companion. He came to the conclusion at last that they must have left early, and he was puzzled to find that, side by side with his disappointment, was mingled a certain feeling of relief. The soft voice, with its strange suggestion of coming from some greater distance, and the aroma of mystery by which she contrived to surround herself, had repelled just as much as it attracted him. He could not make up his mind therefore, whether he was relieved or disappointed when, during his first period of rest for some hours in the temporarily deserted hall, he heard her voice just below the ledge.

“Are you alone?” she asked softly.

“Sure!” Mr. Cray replied. “Come right up.”

Once more she disappeared for a moment and then drifting through the doorway, curiously impersonal, her draperies concealing with matchless art all suggestions of the dancer who still retained her mask.

“That's against regulations!” he declared, pointing to it. “Masks should come off at midnight. Just let me fix it for you.”

She shrank away.

“My mask must not come off,” she murmured.

She seemed nervous and terrified; her eyes shone.

“I am in earnest please,” she began. “Just let me sit here and be near you. Don't speak to me. Don't take any notice of me.”

She sank into a secluded corner, and Mr. Cray scratched his chin and sat watching her her thoughtfully. Her partiality for his society, coupled with her aloofness, puzzled him. Mr. Cray hated to be puzzled.

“I don't quite get you,” he admitted. “You don't seem looking for any fun like the others. What made you come to such a place as this, anyway?”

“Don't ask me, please. If you must know, I came because another wished it.”

“Chap in scarlet?” he suggested genially.

She shook her head

“It was not he—it was Saboa,” she told him in a whisper which scarcely reached his ears.

“Don't know the lady—or gentleman,” Mr. Cray admitted; “but anyway, what made you come back to me again? It isn't the wine, because you're not drinking! You don't seem to want to talk, either.”

“It's your vitality,” she told him nervously. “You are full of life—strong, human life. It warms me.”

Mr. Cray edged a little farther away.

“I guess this is a stunt I'm not up in,” he murmured weakly.

“Of course you don't understand,” she went on after a moment's pause. “I seem to you like other women because I eat and drink and dance—but I am not. My life ebbed out long ago. I belong—somewhere else.”

Mr. Cray moved to the farther end of the box.

“Guess I'll go and collect some of the crowd,” he muttered. “You make yourself quite comfortable and stay just as long as you like.”

“Don't go,” she begged. “Don't leave me.”

Mr. Cray hesitated. He was a good-natured man, and the little quiver in her voice sounded very human.

“I'll stay if you take your mask off,” he suggested.

“You shall see me without my mask within a few hours,” she promised, “but not here—not now. Please—please stay. This is my dangerous hour.”

Illustration: “You must come,” she begged. “They will not let me sleep. They call for you all the time.”

“Is it!” Mr. Cray murmured, this time making for the door. “If you'll excuse me, I'll just—”

“Dangerous to me, I mean—not to you,” she interrupted. “Please do not go. I am afraid of drifting off—of losing myself. My hold is so slight.”

“Let me give you a sandwich,” Mr. Cray suggested.

“Oh, you don't understand!” she moaned.

“I'm with you there,” he assented heartily. “I don't.”

“How can I explain!”

“I'm not particular how you do it,” Mr. Cray replied, “but I've got the idea that you're playing some game on me, and if you're not inclined to put me wise, I'd just as soon—without wishing to seem inhospitable—that you quit it.”

She began to tremble.

“But I don't want to go,” she protested.

Then stay right where you are,” he replied, “and I'll take an amble around and see how things are looking.”

“Would it help you to understand,” she asked, “if I told you who I really am?”

“I guess so.” he assented. “My name's Cray,—Joseph P. Cray of Seattle. when I'm at home—and I don't take any stock in spooks.”

She leaned a little forward. Her eyes glowed as though with wonder at the portent of her words.

“I am Saboa,” she whispered, “Christine Saboa.... Ah, how horrible!”

The box was suddenly and riotously invaded by a horde of a dozen or more revelers. The duties of hospitality for a few moments absorbed Mr. Cray's whole attention. When he looked around, at last, the chair in the corner was empty.

“Hello! Anyone seen my little cloud drift out?” he demanded.

“He means his little sunshine,” a fluffy-haired Columbine declared, passing her hand through his arm. “I'm here, dear. No cloud shall ever come between us.”

“That's a comfort, anyhow,” Mr. Cray acknowledged. “But honest, didn't you see anyone here when you came in—a small person in kind of gray, billowy floating stuff of some sort?”

There was a moment's blank silence, then a roar of laughter.

“Cray, old bean, you're seeing things,” declared a young scion of the Stock Exchange, temporarily gorgeous in ruffles and lace.

“The box was empty save for your gracious self,” a flushed and bedraggled Hamlet declared, his mouth full of sandwich. “To that we can all attest.”

“Anyone ever heard the name of Christine Saboa?” Mr. Cray inquired, keeping a tight hold upon himself.

“Christine Saboa?” a monk, who had hitherto been silent, repeated. “She was a wonderful Danish medium, who nearly sent New York crazy last year.”

“And where is she now?” Mr. Cray asked.

“She died last November,” the monk replied.

Mr. Cray poured himself out a glass of wine, spilling a few spots upon the tablecloth.

“Here's confusion to all spooks!” he exclaimed. “Now,” he added, snatching up his whistle, “let's get outside and make a noise.”

They sallied out. The monk, however, detained his host for a moment after the others had departed. He looked around as though to be sure that they were alone in the box.

“Mr. Cray,” he said, “you flatter my disguise.”

“Not for one second, Inspector,” Mr. Cray replied with a smile. “I'm not quite fresh enough, though, to go bawling 'Scotland Yard' all over the place.”

“I apologize,” the monk declared.

“Anything special on?”

The monk shook his head.

“There are always one or two of us at these affairs,” he said. “I've spotted a couple of well-known thieves already, but there's nothing particular doing. They know we're here, all right. I was interested in that name I heard—Christine Saboa.”

Mr. Cray looked uneasily around.

“She sort o' had me guessing,” he confessed.

“Christine Saboa,” the monk went on, “was not only a very wonderful medium, but she was also a great collector.”

“Of what?”

“Jewelry—anything she could lay her hands on,” the inspector replied. “It was not until after her death that she was even suspected. They say that she must have got away with a quarter of a million pounds' worth of diamonds from New York alone.”

“You're not taking any stock from the fact that she called herself a medium, I suppose?”

The monk scratched his chin.

“Men like you and me, Mr. Cray, sir,” he said, “who take an interest in crime, are bound to be materialists. Still, I've learned in my profession never to be obstinate about anything. There are a good many intelligent and well-informed people who believe in spooks, and I am telling you frankly that this Christine Saboa had, without doubt, some exceptional gifts. They say that she could hypnotize a strong man in three minutes.”

Illustration: The monk shook his head. “There are always one or two of us at these affairs,” he said. “We've spotted a couple of well-known thieves.”

“You're sure she's dead?”

“So far as our information goes,” the monk replied, “she died in New York last November.”

“Then I don't mind telling you,” Mr. Cray confided, “that this little bit of gray cloud who's rather got on my nerves this evening—some eye she's got, but she kept on behaving like a half-baked spook—told me just before you all came in that her name was Christine Saboa.”

“That's interesting,” the monk acknowledged. “Let's have a stroll round and see if we can see anything of her.”

Three times the two men made the circuit of the hall in vain. The Spirit had disappeared.

MR. CRAY stood on the steps of the Albert Hall at four o'clock that morning; paused for a moment to take breath, and sent a mighty volume of raucous sound quivering through the early stillness .

“Rah, rah, rah! Hah, hah, hah! Rah, rah, rah!”

There was a little commotion amongst the unfortunate bystanders. A pleasant-faced officer in uniform, who was standing on the step below Mr. Cray, with a muffled-up form upon his arm, started as though he had been shot and nearly dropped the kit-bag he was carrying.

“For God's sake,” he exclaimed, looking over his shoulder, “what are you making that noise for?

“I want my automobile,” Mr. Cray explained cheerfully, “I've got an American chauffeur who knows the old college yell. I guess he's heard me.”

“I should say he has, if he's this side of the Strand,” the officer commented dryly.

“He's not only heard it, but here he is,” Mr. Cray observed complacently as his limousine stole through the tangle of vehicles and drew up to the steps. “That's worth a shout, eh?

There were many in the waiting crowd who looked wistfully at the car, for a drizzling rain was falling, and taxicabs were scarce. Mr. Cray looked round at the officer and his companion and a addressed the former.

“Can I give you a lift anywhere?” he asked. “I'm going to the Milan Hotel, but I don't mind going a bit out of my way as long as it isn't entirely in the opposite direction.”

The officer stepped forward almost eagerly.

“If you could give my wife and me a lift far as Moon Street, Chelsea,” he said, “it would be awfully good of you. I ordered a taxicab, but I'm afraid it's gone off with some one else. My wife's terribly tired, too.”

“Step right in,” Mr. Cray invited hospitably “Tell the chauffeur your number, Captain. Let me give you a cushion, madam; pretty tiring—⁠ My God!”

They were all three in the car now, the officer with his head out of the window, directing the chauffeur. A black domino had up to the present concealed the whole of the lady's form but the eyes glowing so steadily into his through the folds of her black lace mantilla, were unmistakable. The faintest of weary smiles played upon her lips as she gazed into Mr. Cray's thunderstruck face. The officer withdrew his head from the window

“Major Hartopp, my name is, sir,” he said. “I can't tell you how grateful my wife and I are.”

“Joseph P. Cray is my name,” the other rejoined. “I've come across your good lady before this evening.”

“Yes,” the Spirit murmured sleepily from her corner, “Mr. Cray was very kind to me. He gave me wine and let me sit down in his box.”

“And I understood you to say that your name was Christine Saboa,” Mr. Cray observed, too eager for some measure of elucidation to be anything but ruthless.

“I am Christine Saboa,” was the reply, spoken in a dull, hollow voice. “The whole world knows that.”

Mr. Cray glanced across at his male vis-à-vis. Major Hartopp sighed slightly and shook his head with a warning glance toward the figure at his side, and Mr. Cray, understanding his gesture to mean that his wife was to be humored, relapsed into silence. The car turned southward, passed down Sloane Street and plunged into the purlieus of Chelsea, finally pulling up at what was apparently a pleasant, little-frequented thoroughfare.

“You must come in and have a whisky and soda,” the young soldier insisted hospitably.

Mr. Cray shook his head.

“I guess it's too late,” he replied. “Besides, I'm just as well without any more.”

His new acquaintance, however, would take no refusal, and eventually they all descended from the car and passed through a cheerful little hall into a small morning-room, where a bright fire was burning in the grate. The Spirit came no farther than the threshold of the room. She stood looking at Mr. Cray with strange and mournful intensity.

“Good night,” she said. “You have been very kind to me.”

“Say, wont you take off that mask for a moment before you go?” Mr. Cray begged. “I'd like to be able to recognize you when we meet again.”

She shook her head very slightly.

Her husband frowned across at her in good-natured annoyance.

“Look here, Mina,” he protested, “why don't you do as Mr. Cray asks? I'm pretty sick of the damned thing myself.”

“I cannot,” she answered simply. “I have promised.”

“Rubbish!” her husband answered testily. “There isn't anyone to promise.”

“Good-by, Mr. Cray,” she said.

“Good evening, Mrs. Hartopp,” he replied, with a bow. “I'd like it first-rate if you and your husband could fix it up to take dinner with me at the Milan some night.”

“You are very kind,” she murmured, and drifted away.

Major Hartopp drew a little breath of undisguised relief at the closing of the door. He pulled up an easy-chair to the fire and almost pushed his guest into it. Then he mixed him a whisky-and-soda of generous proportions, served himself also with liberality, and sank down upon a couch opposite to “his guest.

“Mr. Cray,” he confided, “I feel that I owe you an explanation.”

“I wouldn't go so far as that,” his vis-à-vis replied, “but I must admit that your wife puzzled me some.”

“Do you know anything about spiritualism?” Major Hartopp asked

“Not a thing,” Mr. Cray acknowledged.

“Neither do I, but it seems that my wife, before I married her, was a medium.”

“Holds converse with spirits, and that sort of thing?” Mr. Cray ventured dubiously.

“Worse!” his companion groaned. “Spirits actually take possession of her, enter into her body, speak with her tongue, crush out her own personality and obtrude their own.”

“You don't say!” Mr. Cray murmured.

“It seems that she has a personality or spirituality which very few human beings in the world possess,” his companion went on. “Hers, they tell me, is one of the few bodies in the world accessible to the sympathetic dead. They seem to have a taste for revelry, too. One of them always weighs in if we are going to a dance or anything of that sort. Christine Saboa turned up at eight o'clock this evening, just as we were settling down to dinner. Completely spoiled the whole pleasure of the dance for me. I hate spooks.”

Mr. Cray studied Major Hartopp for several moments with half-closed eyes. He was to all appearance the perfect prototype of the well-bred, simple minded, moderately intelligent young British soldier. He had a slight ruddy mustache which went well with his sunburned cheeks, blue eyes and fair hair, inclined to curl. He looked rather like a spoiled boy who has been defrauded of his evening's entertainment.

“Do you seriously believe what you are telling me?” Mr. Cray demanded.

“Damn it all, man,” was the irritable reply, “you don't suppose I should joke over such an infernal business. [Until] that dreary Christine hops it, my wife will be half asleep and as cold as an icicle. Tomorrow she'll telephone to some of these spook lunatics, and they'll haunt the house for days till Mina is herself again.”

MR. CRAY turned his cigar round and round in his fingers, sipped his whisky-and-soda and pondered. Just inside the room, the kit-bag which they had brought from the Albert Hall had burst one of its fastenings, and a glitter of red, the same color as the flaming costume of Mephistopheles, showed itself. He opened his lips to ask a question, but decided to postpone it. Major Hartopp was not in the least the type of a Mephistopheles. His florid complexion and his ingenuous if a little peevish expression stamped him as belonging to a different order of being altogether. Everything about him proclaimed the sports-loving young officer, who has done well enough in the army to have attained his majority and stopped there.

“I can't make out why Mina seems to have attached herself to you so much this evening,” her husband ruminated. “She came to see you several times, didn't she?”

“She came twice,” Mr. Cray admitted. “She had some supper the first time.”

“You aren't psychic or anything of that sort, are you?”

“Not that I know of,” was the cautious reply.

“Says you saw her dancing with Satan—what?”

“I saw that, all right,” Mr. Cray admitted. “A weird-looking couple they made, too.”

“Well, no one else did,” her husband declared. “There wasn't a Satan there, as a matter of fact.”

Mr. Cray's eyes rested upon the gaping kit-bag. He stroked his chin. His whole interest in the evening's adventure was reviving.

“That so?” he murmured.

“Not a sign of one,” the young man continued. “According to Mina, that proves you to be possessed of negative psychic attraction. I don't know what it means, old fellow, but you've got it. She declares she was drawn to you as a trembling leaf blown by the wind.”

Mr. Cray surreptitiously patted his breast pocket, where a slight protuberance indicated the continued presence of his somewhat bulky pocketbook.

“She did kinder stay round in a weird sort of fashion,” he admitted. “I thought she was trying to play some joke upon me. I couldn't seem to tumble at what she was driving at, half the time.”

“My wife's all right when she's herself,” the young man declared irritably. “It was this infernal Christine Saboa who was trying to rake you into the spook business. Between you and me, I hate the whole thing. Half of it's buncombe, and the other half's unwholesome. Just one more small one before you go?”

“Only a spot, then,” Mr. Cray assented, holding out his glass. “Not quite so strong this time.”

“It's pretty nearly pre-war,” his host remarked as he resumed his seat.... “Great Heavens!”

Both men glanced towards the door. The Spirit was standing there—a singular apparition. A white dressing-gown hung loosely upon her; she was still wearing her black mask. Her eyes were fixed upon Mr. Cray.

“You must come,” she begged, speaking very softly yet with almost singular distinctness. “You must please come. They will not let me sleep. They call for you all the time.”

“I am sorry,” was the hasty response, “but I'm just off for home.”

Mr. Cray rose his feet with determination. His host followed his example.

“Mina,” the latter protested, “you really must not worry Mr. Cray now. You are quite mistaken in him. He's as much outside all this business as I am.”

She shook her head. Her eyes still pleaded with Mr. Cray.

“If you are not happy, you shall not stay,” she said, “but you must come, or they will give me no peace.”

“I guess there's some mistake,” Mr. Cray declared coldly. “You'll have to excuse me.”

Her distress became almost a paroxysm. She clutched the framework of the door with either hand, barring their egress. Hartopp drew his guest on one side.

“Look here, Cray,” he begged apologetically, “be a good chap and humor her for two minutes. Just put your head into her little sanctum. She calls it her temple. Maybe that'll satisfy her, and you needn't stay a minute.”

Mr. Cray hesitated.

“Of course, it's all nonsense, the other declared, “but she'll never rest now unless you do it. I'll come along as far as the door, anyway.”

Mr. Cray shrugged his shoulders, and the little procession, led by the Spirit, passed down the passage by the side of the staircase until they reached a door at the far end.

“Come,” she whispered, opening it softly.

Mr. Cray stood by her side. There was no light, and the darkness was impenetrable. It was also very cold, as though the windows were open. The only visible object was the Spirit standing by his side, a pillar of white, her eyes like points of fire.

“Say, what's doing here?” Mr. Cray asked a little uneasily. “Do your visitors need to come in through the window? I guess—”

“Please be quiet,” a low voice begged him. “Be silent for one moment. Listen.”

Mr. Cray listened, and it seemed to him that he heard the door close behind him. He half turned. The curtains were shaking as though a sudden wind were blowing into the room. Then he felt fingers upon the pulses of his wrist, and immediately it seemed to him that they were beating as though they would break through his flesh—fingers upon his temples, and immediately the sense that sledgehammers were beating there, beating against the nerves of his life. His whole sense of being had become pandemonium. The roaring of a furnace was in his ears. He felt himself sinking down and down into space, falling—lower and lower.

MR. CRAY opened his eyes. There were splashes of daylight in the sitting-room, which made the electric lights look feeble and dim. On the lounge opposite, Major Hartopp was still reclining, although he had changed his dress coat for a dressing-gown and removed his collar. He welcomed Mr. Cray's opening eyes with a little sigh of relief.

“Feeling the better for your nap?” he asked, glancing suggestively at the clock.

“My nap?” Mr. Cray repeated vaguely.

His host nodded and stifled a yawn.

“You dropped off like a child,” he said. “I don't want to seem inhospitable, but I think you had better wake up now. Your chauffeur has been in twice, and he doesn't seem in the best of tempers.”

Mr. Cray looked at the extinct cigar which had apparently slipped from his fingers and lay upon the hearth-rug, brushed the cold ashes from his waistcoat and rose to his feet.

“What happened to me in that room?” he demanded.

“Which room?” his host asked.

“The one at the end of the passage, where you and I and your wife went together.”

Major Hartopp looked at his guest hard; then he smiled.

“You've been dreaming,” he observed. “You haven't left that easy-chair since you arrived, and you certainly haven't seen anything of my wife. She went straight to bed directly we got home.”

“Straight to bed?” Mr. Cray repeated in a dazed tone. “You mean to tell me that she didn't come down here in a white dressing-gown and still wearing a mask, and talk about spooks who were clamoring for me in the room at the end of the passage?”

Major Hartopp stifled a yawn.

“She most certainly did not,” he declared a little testily. “You'll forgive my hurrying you, old chap, wont you?” he went on, leading the way towards the door. “To tell you the truth, I'm dying to get to bed. If I'd had any idea that you were dreaming things, I'd have awakened you.”

“Dreaming!” Mr. Cray muttered.

“Sounds like some sort of nightmare,” the other observed. “You seemed to be sleeping so peacefully, though, that I hated to disturb you.”

Mr. Cray felt suddenly for his pocketbook. It was there in its accustomed place, just as bulky and capacious as ever. Neither had the kit-bag, with its incriminating gleam of scarlet, been removed.

“Not your bag, is it?” Major Hartopp asked carelessly.

“I hadn't any grip at all,” Mr. Cray answered. “Isn't it yours?”

Major Hartopp shook his head,

“Mine was practically empty. All it took in it was a couple of bottles of champagne. I set it down on the steps of the Albert Hall while we were waiting and must have picked up this one by mistake. I'll send it back presently.... Jove, isn't the air good!” he added, as he opened the front door and let in a little of the cold breeze. “So long! Look us up some day. You'll find us in the telephone book.”

“Sure!” Mr. Cray promised. “Sorry to have kept you up,” he added mechanically.

The chauffeur darted a reproachful look at his master but in a few minutes they were gliding through the wet and empty streets. Mr. Cray sat back in the corner of the car, no longer in the least sleepy, and probably the most puzzled man in London. He had no headache nor any other sign of ill-being such as might reasonably have been expected to remain with a man who had been drugged. The roll of notes remained in his pocketbook untouched. He knew better than anyone else could that he was and had been all the time perfectly sober. What explanation was there for the strange experience through which he had passed? Mentally he tabulated the various questions as they had occurred to him

One: was Mrs. Hartopp simply a foolish and hysterical woman who had imposed even upon her husband, and who had attached herself to him out of caprice?

Two: was she really a medium and in direct communication with the spirit world, in which, till now, he had had no faith?

Three: was she a clever adventuress with fraudulent designs upon him? Against that, his pocketbook and jewelry were still untouched.

Four: what was the position of Major Hartopp?

Five: had he, Cray, really slept in his easy-chair and only dreamed of that brief period of unconsciousness?

There was something in the early morning atmosphere which encouraged common sense. One by one Mr. Cray discarded the suspicions which had grown up in his mind. By the time he had reached his rooms at the Milan Court, he had almost forgotten them. With a pleasant sense of luxury, he undressed and plunged into a steaming bath, lying there for a few minutes with half-closed eyes before stretching out his hand lazily for the sponge and soap. Suddenly he sat bolt upright, gazing at the first finger of his right hand. At exactly the spot where he was in the habit of grasping his fountain pen was a deep smudge of ink. He stared at it in blank and complete amazement, with a host of new ideas rushing into his brain. For of one thing, Mr. Cray was absolutely and completely certain—there had been no such blemish upon his finger when he had left his box at the Albert Hall.

PRECISELY two minutes after the front doors of the South Audley Street branch of a well-known bank had been opened, Major Hartopp, smoking a cigarette and attired in immaculate mufti, descended from a taxi, strolled across the pavement, and after some fumbling in his pocket, produced a check which he handed across the counter. The manager glanced at it, glanced at another customer a few feet away, who was apparently adding up a list of deposits, and leaving the check upon the counter, moved a couple of yards to a position from which he could command a view of a small private office. He made a sign, and a moment later Mr. Cray strolled in. Major Hartopp, still lounging nonchalantly against the counter, greeted him affably.

“Morning, Mr. Cray! Up and about early, what?”

“I might say the same of you,” Mr. Cray remarked pointedly.

“This gentleman has just presented a check for a thousand pounds, drawn by you,” the manager announced. “May I ask if it is in order?”

“It most surely is not,” was the forcible reply.

The customer who was counting the credits, and who bore a strong resemblance to the Monk of the night before, moved a little back from the counter to a position between Major Hartopp and the door. That gentleman, however, seemed in no way embarrassed.

“Check for a thousand fiddlesticks!” he scoffed. “Look at it again, my dear sir.”

The manager glanced at the check, frowned in a puzzled manner, and stood for a few seconds with the air of one stricken dumb with astonishment.

“Have a look at it yourself, Mr. Cray,” Major Hartopp continued. “It's a silly business, I admit, but my wife got the idea last night that you were a strong unbeliever. As you know, I'm a bit that way myself, but if that's really your signature, this Christine Saboa is a dangerous sort of a spook.”

The three men gazed at the check. It was clearly enough a check for one sovereign, made out to Christine Saboa or bearer.

“It can't be my writing,” Mr. Cray declared, “because I don't remember writing it, but it's the most wonderful imitation I ever saw. Come to think of it, too,” he went on in a puzzled manner, “the only thing that brought me here was some ink on my fingers.”

“Oh, you wrote the check, all right,” Major Hartopp affirmed. “It's a trick of one of her spooks. My instructions were to cash this and to ask you to dinner.”

The manager recovered his power of speech. “The most amazing part of the whole matter is,” he declared, “that I could have sworn this gentleman presented a check for a thousand pounds.”

Major Hartopp smiled.

“I should scarcely have entered into a joke of that sort,” he observed. “What about that pound?”

“You signed the check, all right.”

Mr. Cray nodded. His eves were still fixed upon his indubitable signature, At a sign from him, the manager passed a pound note across the counter, which Major Hartopp folded and thrust in his coat pocket.

“Dine with us at the Carlton tonight at eight o'clock, Mr. Cray,” he invited. “I promise you shall have your pound back with interest.”

“I shall be delighted,” Mr Cray murmured.

“See you later, then,” the young officer concluded, nodding to the manager and taking his departure. “Good morning.”

Major Hartopp left the bank and they heard his taxi drive away. The manager stood on one side of the counter, Cray on the other. The inspector strolled up to them. They all examined the check for a sovereign.

“This gets me,” Mr. Cray confessed. “If that isn't my signature, I'll eat the check.”

“And if the check he showed me three minutes ago wasn't for a thousand pounds, I'll eat it, too,” the manager declared.

The inspector was called to the inner office to answer the telephone. He was out again in thirty seconds.

“We're spoofed somehow!” he exclaimed. “Major and Mrs. Hartopp are on the continent. Their house in Chelsea has been taken furnished for a month by a man and woman wanted very badly by the American police. The man is a great sleight-of-hand thief and one of the most dangerous adventurers in America. The woman has robbed New York of over fifty thousand pounds on this spook game.”

THE manager suddenly stooped down, picked up a strip of paper underneath the counter and held it out.

“A check for a thousand pounds!” he exclaimed. “I knew it!”

“Simple as A, B, C!” the inspector exclaimed. “Our crook saw at once there was something wrong. He'd got the other check ready, changed it, and slipped the thousand-pound one through the hole in the counter there for pass-books. I'll lay odds too, he's the man who got away with ten thousand pounds' worth of jewels last night, dressed in the costume of Mephistopheles.”

“I saw him in it,” Mr. Cray groaned.

“Where were the checks?” the inspector asked.

Mr. Cray produced his pocketbook.

“I always have two or three loose ones with me,” he explained, “and I'd this roll of notes, as it happened, last night, too.”

The inspector glanced at the notes and turned toward the door.

“I'm off,” he exclaimed. “Lost much time already. Ask Mr Thomson there to examine your notes.”

Mr. Cray produced them. The manager held one up to the light.

“Counterfeit!” he exclaimed. “They changed your notes, Mr. Cray, and filched your check, but what I can't understand is—how did they ever get you to sign 'em.”

“I'm worrying some about that myself,” Mr. Cray confided.