r wife," and under them again an indecipherable scrawl.

"Did you tell any one of all this?" I asked.

"Not a word to any one. But I decided to investigate."

"How?"

"By staying in this room at night."

I could guess from her tone what the resolution had cost her.

"And you did?"

"Yes. I came up right after dinner, leaving word that I was not to be
disturbed. I went first to the desk to assure myself that the tray was
empty and that there was no writing on the top sheet of paper. Then I
switched off the light and sat down here by the fire and waited."

"That was brave," I said. "What happened?"

"For an hour, nothing. Then I was suddenly conscious of an odor of
tobacco, as though some one smoking a cigar had entered the room, and
an instant later I heard that chair before the desk creak as though
it had been swung around. I switched on the light at once. The chair
_had_ turned. It had been facing away from the desk, and it was now
faced toward it."

She stopped a moment, and I saw that her excitement of the morning was
returning. Indeed, my own heart was beating with a quickened rhythm
as I glanced around at the desk. I saw that the chair was facing away
from it.

"The odor of tobacco grew stronger," went on Mrs. Magnus, "and, even
as I watched, a little mass of ashes fell into the tray."

"From nowhere?"

"Apparently from nowhere, but of course it was from the cigar that he
was smoking."

"Did you see the smoke?"

"No; how could I?"

Really, I didn't know. I wished that I had given more study to the
details of spirit manifestation. I didn't remember that I had ever
heard of a ghost smoking a cigar, but doubtless such cases existed.
The point was this: Why, if the ashes from the ghost's cigar became
visible when knocked off, shouldn't the smoke become visible when
expired? Or did the fact that it had been inside an invisible object
render it permanently invisible? I fancied this was what Mrs. Magnus
had meant by her question. Perhaps she had studied the subject. At any
rate, it was too deep for me.

"A moment later," she went on, "another mass of ashes fell; then
perhaps five minutes passed, and I saw the remnant of the cigar placed
on the tray. I confess that my nerves gave way at that point, and I
fled from the room."

"Locking the door after you?"

"No; but I came back and locked it ten or fifteen minutes later."

"Did you enter the room?"

"Yes; I had left the light burning and entered