d holds her hand. But a woman doesn't impose on
other women so easily. It's silly."

"My dear," Mrs. Dane said, reaching over and patting my wife's hand,
"people talked that way about Columbus and Galileo. And if it is
nonsense it is such thrilling nonsense!"

VI

I find that the solution of the Arthur Wells mystery--for we did solve
it--takes three divisions in my mind. Each one is a sitting, followed by
an investigation made by Sperry and myself.

But for some reason, after Miss Jeremy's second sitting, I found that my
reasoning mind was stronger than my credulity. And as Sperry had at that
time determined to have nothing more to do with the business, I made
a resolution to abandon my investigations. Nor have I any reason to
believe that I would have altered my attitude toward the case, had it
not been that I saw in the morning paper on the Thursday following
the second seance, that Elinor Wells had closed her house, and gone to
Florida.

I tried to put the fact out of my mind that morning. After all, what
good would it do? No discovery of mine could bring Arthur Wells back
to his family, to his seat at the bridge table at the club, to his too
expensive cars and his unpaid bills. Or to his wife who was not grieving
for him.

On the other hand, I confess to an overwhelming desire to examine again
the ceiling of the dressing room and thus to check up one degree further
the accuracy of our revelations. After some debate, therefore, I called
up Sperry, but he flatly refused to go on any further.

"Miss Jeremy has been ill since Monday," he said. "Mrs. Dane's
rheumatism is worse, her companion is nervously upset, and your own wife
called me up an hour ago and says you are sleeping with a light, and she
thinks you ought to go away. The whole club is shot to pieces."

But, although I am a small and not a courageous man, the desire to
examine the Wells house clung to me tenaciously. Suppose there were
cartridges in his table drawer? Suppose I should find the second bullet
hole in the ceiling? I no longer deceived myself by any argument that
my interest was purely scientific. There is a point at which curiosity
becomes unbearable, when it becomes an obsession, like hunger. I had
reached that point.

Nevertheless, I found it hard to plan the necessary deception to my
wife. My habits have always been entirely orderly and regular. My
wildest dissipation was the Neighborhood Club. I could not recall an
evening away