Rainey peered cautiously over the railing of the stairs to the
first floor, and then beckoned to some one who apparently was
waiting at the end of the hall.

"Miss Vera, sir," he announced, "and Professor Vance."

Although but lately established in New York, the persons Dr.
Rainey introduced had already made themselves comparatively
well-known. For the last six weeks as "headliners" at one of the
vaudeville theatres, and as entertainers at private houses,
under the firm name of "The Vances," they had been giving an
exhibition of code and cipher signaling. They called it mind
reading. During the day, at the house of Vance and his wife, the
girl, as "Vera, the Medium," furnished to all comers memories of
the past or news of the future. In their profession, in all of
its branches, the man and the girl were past masters. They knew
it from the A, B, C of the dream book to the post-graduate work
of projecting from a cabinet the spirits of the dead. As the
occasion offered and paid best, they were mind readers,
clairvoyants, materializing mediums, test mediums. From them, a
pack of cards, a crystal globe, the lines of the human hand,
held no secrets. They found lost articles, cast horoscopes, gave
advice in affairs of the heart, of business and speculation,
uttered warnings of journeys over seas and against a smooth-
shaven stranger. They even stooped to foretell earthquakes, or
caused to drop fluttering from the ceiling a letter straight
from the Himalayas. Among those who are the gypsies of the
cities, they were the aristocrats of their calling, and to them
that calling was as legitimate a business as is, to the roadside