In the evening having to search for some object in the drawer, he saw in the middle of a package of letter-paper a little dark end of something sticking out. He pulled it forth: it was the photograph.
6. Camille Bellon, No. 50 Avenue de Noailles, at Lyons, had three young children whose education he had intrusted to a young governess. This person left when the children entered college, and, sometime after, she married a very fine man, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, but which I can easily find again if there is any need of it.
This young woman came on her wedding trip to visit her old employer. I was invited to go and pass a day with them at the château of my friend Bellon. During the course of this visit, we talked of spiritualistic phenomena; and the newly married man, a highly educated veterinary doctor, joked me about my so-called mediumship. I, of course, laughed about it and we parted the best kind of friends.
Some days afterward, I received a letter from my friend. He had himself received a letter from the young lady, who was in a great state of mind. She had lost her wedding ring, and was in despair. She begged my friend to ask me to recover it for her.
The Mysterious Force wrote, "The ring slipped from her finger while she was asleep. It is on one of the cleats which hold up the mattress of the bed."
I transmitted the despatch. The husband put his hands between the wood of the bed and the mattress. The wife did the same thing. Nothing was found. Some days afterwards, having decided to change the arrangement of their apartments, they moved their bed into another room. Of course they had to lift up the mattress, in order to get it into the other chamber. The ring was upon one of the cleats. They had not found it when they were hunting for it, because it had slipped under the mattress, which did not adhere to the cleat in that particular place.
7. One of my friends, named Boucaut, who lived at 15 quai de la Guillotière at Lyons, had lost a letter which he sadly wanted. He begged me to ask where it was.
The Invisible replied in writing, "He must remember that he has an oven in his garden."
Before showing it to him, I began to laugh, saying that it was a joke and had nothing to do with his request. As he insisted that it did, I read it to him.
"Why yes," he said to me, "that agrees very well. My tenant-farmer had just had his bread baked. I had heaps of papers which I wanted to get rid of, to burn up. My letter must have been burned in the pile which I reduced to ashes."