ife, who was shaking me violently by the
shoulder and exhorting me to choose some more seasonable spot for my
slumbers. So ended the wondrous adventures of Master Cyprian Overbeck
Wells, but I still live in the hopes that in some future dream the great
masters may themselves finish that which they have begun.

VI

PLAYING WITH FIRE

I cannot pretend to say what occurred on the 14th of April last at No.
17, Badderly Gardens. Put down in black and white, my surmise might seem
too crude, too grotesque, for serious consideration. And yet that
something did occur, and that it was of a nature which will leave its
mark upon every one of us for the rest of our lives, is as certain as
the unanimous testimony of five witnesses can make it. I will not enter
into any argument or speculation. I will only give a plain statement,
which will be submitted to John Moir, Harvey Deacon, and Mrs. Delamere,
and withheld from publication unless they are prepared to corroborate
every detail. I cannot obtain the sanction of Paul Le Duc, for he
appears to have left the country.

It was John Moir (the well-known senior partner of Moir, Moir, and
Sanderson) who had originally turned our attention to occult subjects.
He had, like many very hard and practical men of business, a mystic side
to his nature, which had led him to the examination, and eventually to
the acceptance, of those elusive phenomena which are grouped together
with much that is foolish, and much that is fraudulent, under the common
heading of spiritualism. His researches, which had begun with an open
mind, ended unhappily in dogma, and he became as positive and fanatical
as any other bigot. He represented in our little group the body of men
who have turned these singular phenomena into a new religion.

Mrs. Delamere, our medium, was his sister, the wife of Delamere, the
rising sculptor. Our experience had shown us that to work on these
subjects without a medium was as futile as for an astronomer to make
observations without a telescope. On the other hand, the introduction of
a paid medium was hateful to all of us. Was it not obvious that he or
she would feel bound to return some result for money received, and that
the temptation to fraud would be an overpowering one? No phenomena could
be relied upon which were produced at a guinea an hour. But,
fortunately, Moir had discovered that his sister was mediumistic--in
other words, that she was a battery of that animal magne