urprised the number of things that will do the trick if you take
enough. I don't know. If things get to breaking wrong--"

His voice trailed off, and he kicked at the old table cover on the
floor.

"It's a matter of the point of view," he said more cheerfully. "And my
point of view just now is that this place is darned cold, and so's the
street. You'd better have a little something to warm you up before you
go out, Mr. Johnson."

I was chilled through, to tell the truth, and although I rarely drink
anything I went back with him and took an ounce or two of villainous
whiskey, poured out of a jug into a graduated glass. It is with deep
humiliation of spirit I record that a housemaid coming into my library
at seven o'clock the next morning, found me, in top hat and overcoat,
asleep on the library couch.

I had, however, removed my collar and tie, and my watch, carefully
wound, was on the smoking-stand beside me.

The death of Arthur Wells had taken place on Monday evening. Tuesday
brought nothing new. The coroner was apparently satisfied, and on
Wednesday the dead man's body was cremated.

"Thus obliterating all evidence," Sperry said, with what I felt was a
note of relief.

But I think the situation was bothering him, and that he hoped to
discount in advance the second sitting by Miss Jeremy, which Mrs.
Dane had already arranged for the following Monday, for on Wednesday
afternoon, following a conversation over the telephone, Sperry and I had
a private sitting with Miss Jeremy in Sperry's private office. I took
my wife into our confidence and invited her to be present, but the
unfortunate coldness following the housemaid's discovery of me asleep
in the library on the morning after the murder, was still noticeable and
she refused.

The sitting, however, was totally without value. There was difficulty
on the medium's part in securing the trance condition, and she broke out
once rather petulantly, with the remark that we were interfering with
her in some way.

I noticed that Sperry had placed Arthur Wells's stick unobtrusively on
his table, but we secured only rambling and non-pertinent replies to our
questions, and whether it was because I knew that outside it was broad
day, or because the Wells matter did not come up at all I found a total
lack of that sense of the unknown which made all the evening sittings so
grisly.

I am sure she knew we had wanted something, and that she had failed to
give it to us, for