vinced of her trickery."

"Are you convinced of it?" asked Thorpe.

"I've never seen this one, but it's my opinion all professional mediums
are fakes," Shelby replied, seriously; "it may not be so, but I believe
I can tell after one investigation. I shall pretend to be greatly
impressed and all that, but I'll keep my eyes open. And I'm not going to
upset Mr. Crane unnecessarily. But if I think she's just fooling him
along for the money that's in it, I'm going to tell him so."

"Even at that," Blair put in, "maybe it's worth the money to him to be
fooled. He's rich enough."

"Maybe. But I hate to see a man swindled. However, I've agreed to go
with him once, and I'm glad to go. Good-by, I'll report results later."

"You see," Blair said to Thorpe after Shelby had gone, "Kit and I can't
help feeling a sort of responsibility for this fad of Mr. Crane's. It
may be foolish and sentimental, but we feel an interest in Peter's
father, and we watch over him as if Peter had asked us to do so, which,
of course, he never did."

"But the medium business is such awful rubbish," objected Thorpe.

"It is and it isn't," Blair said, musingly. "It's six weeks now since we
came home, and all that time Mr. Crane has been receiving messages from
Peter, and every one of them that I've heard are sane and believable.
Moreover, Carlotta Harper has almost convinced me there's something in
it. That girl is a sort of medium herself. She denies it, says she only
uses her common sense, but I think she's clairvoyant."

"There's a heap of difference between being clairvoyant, in a common
sense way, and being a fake medium! I don't care what Miss Harper does
with a foolish Ouija Board, but I'm like Kit Shelby, I hate to see
Benjamin Crane stung by a wily faker!"

* * * * *

Meantime Mr. Benjamin Crane was altogether enjoying the process that
Thorpe called stinging.

Shelby, deeply interested, and looking innocently credulous, sat by
while the medium conducted the _seance_.

Madame Parlato was, as Crane had asserted, a quiet-mannered, refined
looking woman, of a gracious and pleasant personality. She was tall and
fair, rather English in type, and spoke with a noticeable English
accent. She frequently ended sentences of simple statement with a rising
inflection and was addicted to the use of the word _very_, which she
pronounced _virry_.

"You are a bit skeptical?" she said, with a careless glance at Shelby.