“Well, I ask you not to, anyhow,” said he.
Margaret looked at him closely.
“Hughie, you’ve got something on your mind,” she said. “Out with it. I believe you’re nervous. You think there is something queer about. What is it?”
I could see Hugh hesitating as to whether to tell her or not, and I gathered that he chose the chance of her planchette inanely scribbling.
“Go on, then,” he said.
Margaret hesitated: she clearly did not want to vex Hugh, but his insistence must have seemed to her most unreasonable.
“Well, just ten minutes,” she said, “and I promise not to think of gardeners.”
She had hardly laid her hand on the board when her head fell forward, and the machine began moving. I was sitting close to her, and as it rolled steadily along the paper the writing became visible.
“I have come in,” it ran, “but still I can’t find her. Are you hiding her? I will search the room where you are.”
What else was written but still concealed underneath the planchette I did not know, for at that moment a current of icy air swept round the room, and at the door, this time unmistakably, came a loud, peremptory knock. Hugh sprang to his feet.