, and that's where she
kept gimcracks. The police done me damage enough without my showin'
them her hidin' place and the things she kept there. Here--I'll show
it to you! It's full of keys and electric wires and switches--"

She took Athalie by the arm and drew her over to the west side of the
room.

"You can't see nothing there, can you?" she demanded, pointing at the
high wainscoting of dull wood polished by age.

Athalie confessed she could not.

"Look!"

Mrs. Meehan passed her bony hand along the panels until her work-worn
forefinger rested on a polished knot in the richly grained wood. Then
she pushed; and the entire square of panels swung outward, lowering
like a drawbridge, and presently rested flat on the floor.

"How odd!" exclaimed Athalie, kneeling to see better.

What she saw was a cupboard lined with asbestos, and an elaborate
electric switchboard set with keys from which innumerable insulated
wires radiated, entering tubes that disappeared in every direction.

"What are all these for?" she asked, rising to her feet.

"Dearie, I've got to be honest with _you_. This here lady was a
meejum."

"A--what?"

"A meejum."

"What is that?"

"Why don't you know, dearie? She threw trances for twenty per. She
seen things. She done stunts with tables and tambourines and
accordions. Why this here place is all wired and fixed up between the
walls and the ceiling and roof and the flooring, too. There is chimes
and bells and harmonicas and mechanical banjos under the flooring and
in the walls and ceiling. There's a whispering phonograph, too, and
something that sighs and sobs. Also a machine that is full of singing
birds that pipe up just as sweet and soft and natural as can be.

"On rainy days you can amuse yourself with them keys; I don't like to
fool with them myself, being nervous with a weak back and my vittles
not setting right and all like that--" Again she ran down from sheer
lack of breath.

Athalie gazed curiously at the secret cupboard. After a few moments
she bent over, lifted and replaced the panelling and passed her slim
hand over the wainscot, thoughtfully.

"So the woman was a trance-medium," she said, half to herself.

"Yes, Miss Greensleeve. She read the stars, too, and she done cards on
the side; you know--all about a blond gentleman that wants to meet you
and a dark lady comin' over the water to do something mean to you. She
charged high, but she had customers enough--swell ladies,