The voice trailed off, leaving me in the stifling little Harlem parlor with the mulatto woman snoring.
I sat, bemused, in the straight-back chair across the room from her. My eyes had now got used to the thin light that filtered around the heavy black curtain. I noticed a fleck of white about the corners of her mouth and I made silent note of the way her body heaved with its tortured breathing. After a while, she stirred.
"You theah, Mr. Tompkins?"
"Yes, I'm here."
"You fin' out what you wan'?" she inquired.
"I found out that you're a fraud," I told her. "You're welcome to my money but I'm damned if I think you've earned it."
She sat up and adjusted her clothing calmly. "What for you say that, Mr. Tompkins?" she demanded. "Spirits come, and spirits go. You ask questions. Maybe they give you the answers. I don't know."
"Very clever, Madam la Lune," I observed. "Harcourt phones you I'm on my way and tells you what to do. I'm supposed to come in and swallow it all. Well, I'm not interested in that game. All I want to know is how you managed to imitate my dog?"
Madam la Lune rose and peered at me in the dusk.
"White man," she said. "What dog you talkin' about? I ain't seen no dog."