tes on
sitters, not a trap, not a slate, not a thread of silk mull, not a
spark of phosphorus. I wasn't fool enough to break the rule about
coming downstairs when she had sitters. Let her catch me spyin', and
the bird's gone. But last Sunday night I had a fair chance. I knew it
would come if I waited. There's three servants under me--Mary the cook,
who's a hussy; and Martin the furnace man, who's a drunk; and Ellen,
who's a fool. I'd listened to 'em talking and I'd pumped 'em gradual,
but I couldn't git a definite thing--and what the help don't know about
the crooked places in their bosses ain't generally worth knowin'.
Ellen, the maid, ought to 'a' been my best card--her sittin' every
night at the door catchin' what comes out of the parlors. She couldn't
tell a thing. All she knew was that she heard a lot of talk in low
tones, and it was something about spirits and the devil, and then she
crossed herself. As help goes, they like Mrs. Markham, which is a good
sign.

"Last Sunday, at supper, Ellen begins to complain of a pain in her
head. It seemed to me that I'd better take, just once, the chance of
being recognized by a sitter, an' 'tend door for the seance. So I begun
with Ellen.

"'You're sick, child,' says I, havin' her alone at the time. 'It looks
to me like neuralgia.'

"Well, you're a doctor--I don't have to tell you how easy it is to make
a person _think_ they're sick. And that's my specialty--makin' people
think things. In half an hour, I had that girl whoop-in' an' Martin
telephonin' for a doctor. Then I broke the news over the house
telephone to Mrs. Markham. She waited ten minutes, and called me down.
It come out just as I figured. She wanted me to 'tend door. I'd been
playin' the genteel stupid, you know, so she trusted me. And I must say
I'd rather she hated me, the way I'm out to do her. She told me that I
was to sit by the door and bring in the names of callers, and if anyone
come after eight o'clock, I was to step into the outside hall and get
rid of 'em as quick as I could. Now let me tell you, that killed
another suspicion. One way, the best way of fakin' in a big house, is
to have the maid rob the pockets of people's wraps for letters an'
calling cards an' such. I'd thought maybe Ellen played that game, she
acted so stupid; but here I was lettin' in the visitors, me only, a
week in the house. I took the coats off her callers myself and I
watched them wraps all the time. Nobody ever approached 'em