"It's rather exciting if it comes off," she remarked, thoughtfully. "Everything is pitch-dark, of course, and then you hear signs and groans, and sometimes a hand comes out and touches you."
"But do you really believe——" began Merton, incredulously.
"I don't believe—I know," said the girl, calmly. "Why, at one séance I attended a jade necklace I was wearing was wrenched off my neck. The fastening was broken, and all the beads rolled about the floor. And everyone had been bound in their chairs, Mr. Merton, before we started."
Billy nodded discreetly; it occurred to him that he had heard stories like that before.
"You hear something moving round the room," she continued, "something you know was not there at the beginning—and won't be there at the end. And sometimes it bumps against you, and then it goes on floundering and moving about the room. It sounds like a sack of potatoes being dragged about at times, and then it changes and you hear soft footfalls."
Again Billy nodded: he was prepared to listen indefinitely to this sort of stuff when the speaker was Iris Sala.
"It sounds more than rather exciting," he said, with a grin. "Let's hope we get the jolly old flounderer to-night."
For the moment his own trouble was forgotten: he was only conscious of a pleasurable sense of excitement. Not that he really believed in what the girl had said, any more than the average normal person believes in a haunted house. But even the most pronounced sceptic is conscious of a little thrill when he turns out the light in the bedroom which is popularly reputed to be the family ghost's special hunting-ground.
"I think it's very foolish of Mrs. Harker to wear those lovely pearls of hers." The girl was speaking again, and Merton glanced at his hostess. He had not remarked them specially before, but now he noticed that Mrs. Harker had three long ropes of large beautifully matched pearls round her neck. "My jade beads didn't matter very much—though I lost half a dozen at least. But with those pearls—why, she might mislay a dozen if the rope was broken, and be none the wiser."
A jovial chuckle made Merton look up. Paul Harker was standing behind them, and he had evidently heard the girl's remark.