“Well, it was neither of us, then,” said he. “I was vexed because Mrs. Gardner—Mrs. Forsyth had said she didn’t want that sort of thing, and I was reading her as I never read any one before. I told her about the locket and the black hair, I got her brother’s name, I got her name and her nickname Queenie. Then she asked if Denys could really come, and at that moment something began to take possession of me. I think I saw a light as usual over my breast, and I think I heard a tremendous rapping. Did you do either of those, or did they really happen?”
Julia stared at him for a moment in silence.
“I did neither of those,” she said; “but they happened. You must have pressed the breast-pocket switch and trod on the switch of the hammer.”
He opened his coat.
“I had not got the breast-pocket switch,” he said, “and I certainly did not tread on the hammer-switch.”
Julia moved her chair a little closer to him.
“The hammer did not sound right,” she said. “It was ten times louder than I have ever heard, and the light was quite different somehow. It was much brighter. I could see everything in the room quite distinctly. Go on, Dick.”
“I can’t. That’s all I know until I came to, leaning over the table and bathed in perspiration. Tell me what happened.”
“Dick, do you swear that is true?” she asked.
“Certainly I do. Go on.”