s or
analytic in type.

But outside of the purely physical phenomena of those seances, we are
provided with an explanation which satisfies the Neighborhood Club, even
if it fails to satisfy the convinced spiritist. We have been accused
merely of substituting one mystery for another, but I reply by saying
that the mystery we substitute is not a mystery, but an acknowledged
fact.

On Tuesday morning I wakened after an uneasy night. I knew certain
things, knew them definitely in the clear light of morning. Hawkins had
the letters that Arthur Wells had found; that was one thing. I had not
taken Ellingham's stick to Mrs. Dane's house; that was another. I had
not done it. I had placed it on the table and had not touched it again.

But those were immaterial, compared with one outstanding fact. Any
supernatural solution would imply full knowledge by whatever power had
controlled the medium. And there was not full knowledge. There was, on
the contrary, a definite place beyond which the medium could not go.

She did not know who had killed Arthur Wells.

To my surprise, Sperry and Herbert Robinson came together to see me
that morning at my office. Sperry, like myself, was pale and tired, but
Herbert was restless and talkative, for all the world like a terrier on
the scent of a rat.

They had brought a newspaper account of an attempt by burglars to rob
the Wells house, and the usual police formula that arrests were expected
to be made that day. There was a diagram of the house, and a picture of
the kitchen door, with an arrow indicating the bullet-hole.

"Hawkins will be here soon," Sperry said, rather casually, after I had
read the clipping.

"Here?"

"Yes. He is bringing a letter from Miss Jeremy. The letter is merely a
blind. We want to see him."

Herbert was examining the door of my office. He set the spring lock. "He
may try to bolt," he explained. "We're in this pretty deep, you know."

"How about a record of what he says?" Sperry asked.

I pressed a button, and Miss Joyce came in. "Take the testimony of the
man who is coming in, Miss Joyce," I directed. "Take everything we say,
any of us. Can you tell the different voices?"

She thought she could, and took up her position in the next room, with
the door partly open.

I can still see Hawkins as Sperry let him in--a tall, cadaverous man of
good manners and an English accent, a superior servant. He was cool but
rather resentful. I judged that he considered ca