sible they may not
turn up after all.... Anyway, don't wait."

"I would prefer to start at once," said Backhouse.

The lounge, a lofty room, forty feet long by twenty wide, had been
divided for the occasion into two equal parts by a heavy brocade curtain
drawn across the middle. The far end was thus concealed. The nearer half
had been converted into an auditorium by a crescent of armchairs. There
was no other furniture. A large fire was burning halfway along the wall,
between the chairbacks and the door. The room was brilliantly lighted by
electric bracket lamps. A sumptuous carpet covered the floor.

Having settled his guests in their seats, Faull stepped up to the
curtain and flung it aside. A replica, or nearly so, of the Drury Lane
presentation of the temple scene in The Magic Flute was then exposed to
view: the gloomy, massive architecture of the interior, the glowing sky
above it in the background, and, silhouetted against the latter, the
gigantic seated statue of the Pharaoh. A fantastically carved wooden
couch lay before the pedestal of the statue. Near the curtain, obliquely
placed to the auditorium, was a plain oak armchair, for the use of the
medium.

Many of those present felt privately that the setting was quite
inappropriate to the occasion and savoured rather unpleasantly
of ostentation. Backhouse in particular seemed put out. The usual
compliments, however, were showered on Mrs. Trent as the deviser of
so remarkable a theatre. Faull invited his friends to step forward and
examine the apartment as minutely as they might desire. Prior and
Lang were the only ones to accept. The former wandered about among the
pasteboard scenery, whistling to himself and occasionally tapping a part
of it with his knuckles. Lang, who was in his element, ignored the rest
of his party and commenced a patient, systematic search, on his own
account, for secret apparatus. Faull and Mrs. Trent stood in a corner
of the temple, talking together in low tones; while Mrs. Jameson,
pretending to hold Backhouse in conversation, watched them as only a
deeply interested woman knows how to watch.

Lang, to his own disgust, having failed to find anything of a suspicious
nature, the medium now requested that his own clothing should be
searched.

"All these precautions are quite needless and beside the matter in
hand, as you will immediately see for yourselves. My reputation demands,
however, that other people who are not present would n