“Now, dear, you are not on in this act,” said Mailey. “You will retire discreetly into the wings. Don’t worry if you hear a row.”
“But I do worry, dear. You’ll get hurt.”
Mailey laughed.
“I think your furniture may possibly get hurt. You have nothing else to fear, dear. And it’s all for the good of the Cause. That always settles it,” he explained, as his wife reluctantly left the room. “I really think she would go to the stake for the Cause. Her great, loving, womanly heart knows what it would mean for this grey earth if people could get away from the shadow of death and value this great happiness that is to come, By Jove! she is an inspiration to me.... Well,” he went on with a laugh, “I must not get on to that subject. We have something very different to think of—something as hideous and vile as she is beautiful and good. It concerns Tom Linden’s brother.”
“I’ve heard of the fellow,” said Malone. “I used to box a bit and I am still a member of the N.S.C. Silas Linden was very nearly Champion in the Welters.”
“That’s the man. He is out of a job and thought he would take up mediumship. Naturally I and other Spiritualists took him seriously, for we all love his brother, and these powers often run in families, so that his claim seemed reasonable. So we gave him a trial last night.”
“Well, what happened?”
“I suspected the fellow from the first. You understand that it is hardly possible for a medium to deceive an experienced Spiritualist. When there is deception it is at the expense of outsiders. I watched him carefully from the first, and I seated myself near the cabinet. Presently he emerged clad in white. I broke the contact by prearrangement with my wife who sat next me, and I felt him as he passed me. He was, of course, in white. I had a pair of scissors in my pocket and I snipped off a bit from the edge.”
Mailey drew a triangular piece of linen from his pocket.
“There it is, you see. Very ordinary linen. I have no doubt the fellow was wearing his nightgown.”