ging it about. I looked at my partner, first
with suspicion, and then with a vast relief. If she was doing it, then
all that talk about spirits----Oh, I did hope Miss Laura Hinkle was
cheating with that board!

"Ouija, dear, won't you tell us something?" she cooed, and on the
instant the thing seemed to take life.

It rushed to the upper left hand corner of the board and hovered with
its front leg on the word "Yes." Then it began to fly around so fast
that I gave up any attempt to follow it. My companion was bending
forward and had started to spell out loud:

"'T-r-a-i-t-o-r.' Traitor! Why, what does she mean?"

"I don't know," I said desperately. My collar felt very tight.

"But she must mean something. Ouija, dear, won't you explain yourself
more fully?"

"'A-s-k-h-i-m!' Ask him. Ask who, Ouija?"

"I--I'm going." I choked and tried to get up but my fingers seemed stuck
to that dreadful board and I dropped back again.

Apparently Miss Hinkle had not heard my protest. The thing was going
around faster than ever and she was reading the message silently, with
her brow corrugated, and the light of the huntress in her pale blue
eyes.

"Why, she says it's you, Mr. Hallock. What _does_ she mean? Ouija, won't
you tell us who is talking?"

I groaned, but that inexorable board continued to spell. I always did
hate a spelling match! Miss Hinkle was again following it aloud:

"'H-e-l-e-n.' Helen!" She raised her voice until it could be heard at
the other end of the room. "Lavinia, dear, do you know anyone by the
name of Helen?"

"By the name of----? I can't hear you." And my wife made her way over to
us between the Book Club's chairs.

"You know the funniest thing has happened," she whispered excitedly.
"Someone had been trying to communicate with John through Mrs. Hunt's
and Mrs. Sprinkle's Ouija! Someone by the name of Helen----"

"Why, _isn't_ that curious!"

"What is?"

Miss Hinkle simpered.

"Someone giving the name of Helen has just been calling for your husband
here."

"But we don't know anyone by the name of Helen----"

Lavinia stopped and began to look at me through narrowed lids much as
she had done in the library the evening before.

And then from different parts of the room other manipulators began to
report. Every plagued one of those five Ouija boards was calling me by
name! I felt my ears grow crimson, purple, maroon. My wife was looking
at me as though I were some peculiar insect. The squ