“Oh, the boy isn’t an alien influence. He’s a little friend of mine—he’ll do no harm.”
“I’ll go out, if you say, mister,” Fibsy turned his indifferent gaze on the clairvoyant.
“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” spoke up Miss Ames. “I’m accustomed to séances, Mr. Marigny, and if you’re all right—as I was told you were—a child’s presence won’t interfere.”
Evidently the psychic saw he had no novice to deal with, and he accepted the situation.
“What do you want to know?” he asked his client.
“Who killed Sanford Embury—or, did he kill himself. I want you to get into communication with his spirit and find out from him. But I don’t want any make-believe. If you can’t succeed, that’s all right—I’ll pay your fee just the same. But no poppycock.”
“That’s the way to look at it, madam. I will go into the silence, and I will give you only such information as I get myself.”
The man leaned back in his chair, and gradually seemed to enter a hypnotic state. His muscles relaxed, his face became still and set, and his breathing was slow and a little labored.
Fibsy retained his vacuous look he even fidgeted a little, in a bored way—and rarely glanced toward the man of “clear sight.”
Miss Ames, though anxious for results, was alert and quite on her guard against fraud. Experienced in fake mediums, she believed Willy Hanlon’s assertion that this man was one of the few genuine mystics, but she proposed to judge for herself.