Part 20 (2/2)
”It doesn't explain how that medium knew everything that happened,”
Clara put in, excitedly. ”She knew it all, even the library paste! I can tell you, Mr. Johnson, I was close to fainting a dozen times before I finally did it.”
”Did you know of our seances?” I asked Mrs. Wells.
”Yes. I may as well tell you that I haven't been in Florida. How could I? The children are there, but I--”
”Did you tell Charlie Ellingham about them?”
”After the second one I warned him, and I think he went to the house.
One bullet was somewhere in the ceiling, or in the floor of the nursery.
I thought it ought to be found. I don't know whether he found it or not.
I've been afraid to see him.”
She sat, clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap. She was a proud woman, and surrender had come hard. The struggle was marked in her face.
She looked as though she had not slept for days.
”You think I am frightened,” she said slowly. ”And I am, terribly frightened. But not about discovery. That has come, and cannot be helped.”
”Then why?”
”How does this woman, this medium, know these things?” Her voice rose, with an unexpected hysterical catch. ”It is superhuman. I am almost mad.”
”We're going to get to the bottom of this,” Sperry said soothingly.
”Be sure that it is not what you think it is, Elinor. There's a simple explanation, and I think I've got it. What about the stick that was taken from my library?”
”Will you tell me how you came to have it, doctor?”
”Yes. I took it from the lower hall the night--the night it happened.”
”It was Charlie Ellingham's. He had left it there. We had to have it, doctor. Alone it might not mean much, but with the other things you knew--tell them, Clara.”
”I stole it from your office,” Clara said, looking straight ahead. ”We had to have it. I knew at the second sitting that it was his.”
”When did you take it?”
”On Monday morning, I went for Mrs. Dane's medicine, and you had promised her a book. Do you remember? I told your man, and he allowed me to go up to the library. It was there, on the table. I had expected to have to search for it, but it was lying out. I fastened it to my belt, under my long coat.”
”And placed it in the rack at Mrs. Dane's?” Sperry was watching her intently, with the same sort of grim intentness he wears when examining a chest.
”I put it in the closet in my room. I meant to get rid of it, when I had a little time. I don't know how it got downstairs, but I think--”
”Yes?”
”We are house-cleaning. A housemaid was was.h.i.+ng closets. I suppose she found it and, thinking it was one of Mrs. Dane's, took it downstairs.
That is, unless--” It was clear that, like Elinor, she had a supernatural explanation in her mind. She looked gaunt and haggard.
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