Sight Unseen | Page 6

to me, "and have her bring
a note-book and pencil." Nothing, I believe, happened during my
absence. Miss Jeremy was sunk in her chair and breathing heavily
when I came back with Clara, and Sperry was still watching her pulse.
Suddenly my wife said:
"Why, look! She's wearing my bracelet!"
This proved to be the case, and was, I regret to say, the cause of a most
unjust suspicion on my wife's part. Even today, with all the knowledge
she possesses, I am certain that Mrs. Johnson believes that some
mysterious power took my watch and dragged it off the table, and
threw the pen, but that I myself under cover of darkness placed her
bracelet on Miss Jeremy's arm. I can only reiterate here what I have
told her many times, that I never touched the bracelet after it was
placed on the stand.
"Take down everything that happens, Clara, and all we say," Mrs. Dane
said in a low tone. "Even if it sounds like nonsense, put it down."
It is because Clara took her orders literally that I am making this more
readable version of her script. There was a certain amount of
non-pertinent matter which would only cloud the statement if rendered
word for word, and also certain scattered, unrelated words with which
many of the statements terminated. For instance, at the end of the
sentence, "Just above the ear," came a number of rhymes to the final
word, "dear, near, fear, rear, cheer, three cheers." These I have cut, for
the sake of clearness.
For some five minutes, perhaps, Miss Jeremy breathed stertorously, and
it was during that interval that we introduced Clara and took up our

positions. Sperry sat near the medium now, having changed places with
Herbert, and the rest of us were as we had been, save that we no longer
touched hands. Suddenly Miss Jeremy began to breathe more quietly,
and to move about in her chair. Then she sat upright.
"Good evening, friends," she said. "I am glad to see you all again."
I caught Herbert's eye, and he grinned.
"Good evening, little Bright Eyes," he said. "How's everything in the
happy hunting ground tonight?"
"Dark and cold," she said, "Dark and cold. And the knee hurts. It's very
bad. If the key is on the nail - Arnica will take the pain out."
She lapsed into silence. In transcribing Clara's record I shall make no
reference to these pauses, which were frequent, and occasionally filled
in with extraneous matter. For instance, once there was what amounted
to five minutes of Mother Goose jingles. Our method was simply one
of question, by one of ourselves, and of answer by Miss Jeremy. These
replies were usually in a querulous tone, and were often apparently
unwilling. Also occasionally there was a bit of vernacular, as in the
next reply. Herbert, who was still flippantly amused, said:
"Don't bother about your knee. Give us some local stuff. Gossip. If you
can."
"Sure I can, and it will make your hair curl." Then suddenly there was a
sort of dramatic pause and then an outburst.
"He's dead."
"Who is dead?" Sperry asked, with his voice drawn a trifle thin.
"A bullet just above the ear. That's a bad place. Thank goodness there's
not much blood. Cold water will take it out of the carpet. Not hot. Not
hot. Do you want to set the stain?"
"Look here," Sperry said, looking around the table. "I don't like this. It's

darned grisly."
"Oh, fudge!" Herbert put in irreverently. "Let her rave, or it, or
whatever it is. Do you mean that a man is dead?" - to the medium.
"Yes. She has the revolver. She needn't cry so. He was cruel to her. He
was a beast. Sullen."
"Can you see the woman?" I asked.
"If it's sent out to be cleaned it will cause trouble. Hang it in the closet."
Herbert muttered something about the movies having nothing on us,
and was angrily hushed. There was something quite outside of Miss
Jeremy's words that had impressed itself on all of us with a sense of
unexpected but very real tragedy. As I look back I believe it was a sort
of desperation in her voice. But then came one of those interruptions
which were to annoy us considerably during the series of sittings; she
began to recite Childe Harold.
When that was over,
"Now then," Sperry said in a businesslike voice, "you see a dead man,
and a young woman with him. Can you describe the room?"
"A small room, his dressing-room. He was shaving. There is still lather
on his face."
"And the woman killed him?"
"I don't know. Oh, I don't know. No, she didn't. He did it!"
"He did it himself?"
There was no