had closed, Nick crept up.

He manoeuvred carefully, and discovered that there was somebody sitting
in the hall just inside the door.

Entrance by that means was out of the question.

However, he succeeded without much difficulty in entering the house from
the rear.

He found himself in the kitchen, from which he passed to a dining-room.

This apartment was almost totally dark. Nick felt his way to the side
opposite the kitchen, and came to a heavy pair of folding doors.

From the other side came a confused murmur of voices, as if many persons
were talking in hushed tones.

Presently they became quite still and then there arose the sound of
music. It was a slow and somber strain, as from an organ gently played.

Nick was crouching against the door, among the folds of a curtain which
could be drawn across.

Suddenly he heard a slight sound behind him. He turned noiselessly.

A white figure flitted across the room.

Nick was at one end of the folding doors, and the figure passed to the
other end and into the corner beyond.

There it suddenly vanished.

The light was so dim that Nick could not tell exactly what had happened.

It certainly seemed as if the figure had gone straight through the wall.

About a minute later another form appeared in the same way. It crossed
the room, and vanished.

"Good!" muttered Nick. "I'll back these ghosts against any that Colonel
Richmond can raise in his house."

Almost immediately there was the sound of a voice in the room beyond the
doors.

"Does any person present recognize a departed friend?" it said.

Then Colonel Richmond's voice arose, hoarse and trembling with emotion.

"Aunt Lavina," he said, "tell me what you wish me to do. I will obey you
absolutely."

"I thought so," chuckled the detective. "The colonel has come to attend
a spiritualistic seance."

CHAPTER VI.

A ROUND-UP OF SPOOK-ARTISTS.

It began to look very much as if Horace Richmond's theory was correct.
Certainly the colonel had fallen again into the clutches of bogus
mediums.

It might be that the whole plot was directed to that end, and that the
transfer of the jewels to the Stevenses was only to be an incidental
result of the plot.

Yet so long as Miss Stevens' unusual conduct remained unexplained, it
would not do to go upon this theory.

"One of the principal things that Horace Richmond employed me to do,"
said Nick to himself, "was to break up his uncle's belief in
spirit