ot for my purpose. I will send you further particulars"--he glanced
towards the window--"in writing. We meet there on Wednesday at
nine-thirty. Can I rely upon you?"

"Yes," said Sheard, wondering at the other's indiscretion, "unless I
wire you to the contrary. I might be unable to turn up at the last
moment, of course."

"You are nervous!" Severac Bablon smiled, and slipped from the room.

"On the contrary," said Sheard, addressing the window. "There is nothing
I enjoy better than an evening in a haunted house!"

(Perhaps, he argued, Alden was not absolutely certain of his visitor's
identity. He did not know at what point in the conversation the
telephone device had come into action. It was a pity to waste words; he
might as well endeavour to throw the eavesdropper off the scent, in
addition to covering Severac Bablon's retreat.)

"Let us hope, Professor," he resumed, with this laudable intention,
"that the Society for Psychical Research will be the richer in knowledge
for our experiment on Wednesday evening!"

Mr. Aloys. X. Alden, with his ear to the ingenious little "electric
eavesdropper," experienced an unpleasant chill upon hearing the visitor
within addressed as "Professor."

He had conceived the idea that Sheard--whom he strongly suspected, might
hold interviews with the mysterious and elusive Severac Bablon in the
small hours of the morning, at his own house, when the rest of the
household were retired.

Mr. Alden had watched for five nights when he knew the pressman to be at
home. On four of them Sheard's light had been extinguished before
midnight. To-night, the fifth, it had remained burning, and long
vigilance had been rewarded.

A car had drawn up at some distance from the house, and its occupant had
proceeded forward on foot. He had been admitted so rapidly that Alden
had been unable to ascertain by whom. The car, too, had been driven off
immediately. He had had no chance of taking the number; but was astute
enough to know that in any event it would have availed him little,
since, if the car were Bablon's the number would almost certainly be a
false one.

For once in a way, Mr. Alden became excited. Whom could so late a
visitor be, save one who wished to keep secret his visit? In attaching
his eavesdropper he had clumsily raised his head above the level of the
window-ledge, but he had hoped that this gross error of strategy had
passed unnoticed. For a time he had failed to pick up the conversa