carefully noted everything about the room and then fell to
admiring the spirit photographs, if such they might be called.

"The best of all I do not display, they are too precious," said the old
man. "Would you like to see them?"

Craig assented eagerly, and Vandam left us for a moment to get them. In
an instant Craig had entered the cabinet, and in a dark corner on the
floor he deposited the mechanism he had brought from the laboratory.
Then he resumed his seat, shutting the box in which he had brought the
mechanism, so that it would not appear that he had left anything about
the room.

Artfully he led the conversation along lines that interested the old
man until he seemed to forget the hour. Not so, Craig. He knew it was
nearing half-past twelve. The more they talked the more uncanny did this
house and room of spirits seem to me. In fact, I was rapidly reaching
the point where I could have sworn that once or twice something
incorporeal brushed by me. I know now that it was purely imagination,
but it shows what tricks the imagination can play on us.

Rap! rap! rap! rap! rap!

Five times came a curiously hollow noise from the cabinet. If it
had been possible I should certainly have fled, it was so sudden and
unexpected. The hall clock downstairs struck the half-hour in those
chimes written by Handel for St. Paul's.

Craig leaned over to me and whispered hoarsely, "Keep perfectly
still--don't move a hand or foot."

The old man seemed utterly to have forgotten us. "Is that you, John?" he
asked expectantly.

Rap! rap! rap! came the reply.

"Is Mary strong enough to speak to me to-night?"

Rap! rap!

"Is she happy?"

Rap! rap!

"What makes her unhappy? What does she want? Will you spell it out?"

Rap! rap! rap!

Then, after a pause, the rapping started slowly, and distinctly to spell
out words. It was so weird and uncanny that I scarcely breathed. Letter
after letter the message came, nineteen raps for "s," eight for "h,"
five for "e," according to the place in the alphabet, numerically, of
the required letter. At last it was complete.

"She thinks you are not well. She asks you to have that prescription
filled again."

"Tell her I will do it to-morrow morning. Is there anything else?"

Rap! rap! came back faintly:

"John, John, don't go yet," pleaded the old man earnestly. It was easy
to see how thoroughly he believed in "John," as perhaps well he might
after the warning of his wife's death three