Sight Unseen | Page 3

into the
drawing-room were seen to be tightly closed.
We were early, as my wife is a punctual person, and soon after our
arrival Sperry came. Mrs. Dane was in her chair as usual, with her
companion in attendance, and when she heard Sperry's voice outside
she excused herself and was wheeled out to him, and together we heard
them go into the drawing-room. When the Robinsons arrived she and
Sperry reappeared, and we waited for her customary announcement of
the evening's program. When none came, even during the meal, I
confess that my curiosity was almost painful.

I think, looking back, that it was Sperry who turned the talk to the
supernatural, and that, to the accompaniment of considerable gibing by
the men, he told a ghost story that set the women to looking back over
their shoulders into the dark corners beyond the zone of candle-light.
All of us, I remember, except Sperry and Mrs. Dane, were skeptical as
to the supernatural, and Herbert Robinson believed that while there
were so-called sensitives who actually went into trance, the controls
which took possession of them were buried personalities of their own,
released during trance from the sub-conscious mind.
"If not," he said truculently, "if they are really spirits, why can't they
tell us what is going on, not in some vague place where they are always
happy, but here and now, in the next house? I don't ask for prophecy,
but for some evidence of their knowledge. Are the Germans getting
ready to fight England? Is Horace here the gay dog some of us
suspect?"
As I am the Horace in question, I must explain that Herbert was merely
being facetious. My life is a most orderly and decorous one. But my
wife, unfortunately, lacks a sense of humor, and I felt that the remark
might have been more fortunate.
"Physical phenomena!" scoffed the cynic. "I've seen it all - objects
moving without visible hands, unexplained currents of cold air, voice
through a trumpet - I know the whole rotten mess, and I've got a book
which tells how to do all the tricks. I'll bring it along some night."
Mrs. Dane smiled, and the discussion was dropped for a time. It was
during the coffee and cigars that Mrs. Dane made her announcement.
As Alice Robinson takes an after-dinner cigarette, a custom my wife
greatly deplores, the ladies had remained with us at the table.
"As a matter of fact, Herbert," she said, "we intend to put your
skepticism to the test tonight. Doctor Sperry has found a medium for us,
a non-professional and a patient of his, and she has kindly consented to
give us a sitting."
Herbert wheeled and looked at Sperry.

"Hold up your right hand and state by your honor as a member in good
standing that you have not primed her, Sperry."
Sperry held up his hand.
"Absolutely not," he said, gravely. "She is coming in my car. She
doesn't know to what house or whose. She knows none of you. She is a
stranger to the city, and she will not even recognize the neighborhood."

II
The butler wheeled out Mrs. Dane's chair, as her companion did not
dine with her on club nights, and led us to the drawing-room doors.
There Sperry threw them, open, and we saw that the room had been
completely metamorphosed.
Mrs. Dane's drawing-room is generally rather painful. Kindly soul that
she is, she has considered it necessary to preserve and exhibit there the
many gifts of a long lifetime. Photographs long outgrown, onyx tables,
a clutter of odd chairs and groups of discordant bric-a-brac usually
make the progress of her chair through it a precarious and perilous
matter. We paused in the doorway, startled.
The room had been dismantled. It opened before us, walls and
chimney-piece bare, rugs gone from the floor, even curtains taken from
the windows. To emphasize the change, in the center stood a common
pine table, surrounded by seven plain chairs. All the lights were out
save one, a corner bracket, which was screened with a red-paper shade.
She watched our faces with keen satisfaction. "Such a time I had doing
it!" she said. "The servants, of course, think I have gone mad. All
except Clara. I told her. She's a sensible girl."
Herbert chuckled.
"Very neat," he said, "although a chair or two for the spooks would
have been no more than hospitable. All right Now bring on your

ghosts."
My wife, however, looked slightly displeased. "As a church-woman,"
she said, "I really feel that it is positively impious to bring back the
souls of the departed, before they are called from on High."
"Oh, rats," Herbert broke in rudely. "They'll not come. Don't worry.
And if you hear raps, don't worry. It