helped me to my next question.

"You went out to telephone when there is a telephone in the house?"

But here again, as once or twice before, a veil dropped between us.
She avoided my eyes. "There are things one does not want the family
to hear," she muttered. Then, having determined on a course of
action, she followed it. "I am looking for another position. I do
not like it here. The children are spoiled. I only came for a
month's trial."

"And the pharmacy?"

"Elliott's, at the corner of State Avenue and McKee Street."

I told her that it would not be necessary for her to go to the
pharmacy, and she muttered something about the children and went
up the stairs. When Sperry came back with the opiate she was
nowhere in sight, and he was considerably annoyed.

"She knows something," I told him. "She is frightened."

Sperry eyed me with a half frown.

"Now see here, Horace," he said, "suppose we had come in here,
without the thought of that seance behind us? We'd have accepted
the thing as it appears to be, wouldn't we? There may be a dozen
explanations for that sponge, and for the razor strop. What in
heaven's name has a razor strop to do with it anyhow? One bullet
was fired, and the revolver has one empty chamber. It may not be