Except that there wouldn’t be any ghost to grab. Knowing that fact, Cranston was a trifle bored.
Madame Mathilda dealt in “clairvoyant and clairaudient materializations,” a high sounding definition which caused the commissioner to think a lot was due to happen. The police had received a lot of complaints lately about wealthy people investing large sums in questionable ventures due to spirit guidance. Therefore to grab a phoney ghost in a much advertised medium’s parlor would be a fine starting point toward cracking up a growing racket.
But those terms “clairvoyant and clairaudient” were a hitch that Weston didn’t recognize. They meant simply that Madame Mathilda saw and heard things to which ordinary eyes and ears were not sensitive. All she had to do would be describe spirits and relay what they said; that would satisfy the regular customers and with it disappoint the strangers.
Right now, Madame Mathilda was coming to that phase and Cranston was settling back in his chair hoping it would soon be over, when he saw the glimmer.
It was a dot of light, an uncanny thing that might have come from outer space. It blinked like some strange eye, nervous and untraceable.
Yet not untraceable to Cranston.
Before the seance began, Cranston had taken in every detail of the room. He had noted a loose-hanging corner at the top of an old blackout curtain that Madame Mathilda had drawn across a high window opening into a courtyard. Since the court itself was very dark, that gap had not admitted any light until now.
Only Cranston and the medium could see it, for they were the only two faced in that direction. Cranston studied the phenomenon calmly, analyzing the blinks as something distant from outdoors. The effect upon Madame Mathilda was electrifying.
The medium’s trill-sprinkled moans culminated in a stupendous shriek.
“Canhywllah Cyrth!” she shrilled. “Canhywllah Cyrth!”