Fortunately, during this conversation my wife was upstairs dressing. I knew quite well that she would violently oppose a second visit on my part to the deserted house down the street. I therefore left a message for her that I had gone on, and, finding the street clear, met Sperry at his door-step.
“This is the last sitting, Horace,” he explained, “and I feel we ought to have the most complete possible knowledge, beforehand. We will be in a better position to understand what comes. There are two or three things we haven’t checked up on.”
He slipped an arm through mine, and we started down the street. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this, Horace, old dear,” he said.
“Remember, we’re pledged to a psychic investigation only.”
“Rats!” he said rudely. “We are going to find out who killed Arthur Wells, and if he deserves hanging we’ll hang him.”
“Or her?”
“It wasn’t Elinor Wells,” he said positively. “Here’s the point: if he’s been afraid to go back for his overcoat it’s still there. I don’t expect that, however. But the thing about the curtain interests me. I’ve been reading over my copy of the notes on the sittings. It was said, you remember, that curtains—some curtains—would have been better places to hide the letters than the bag.”
I stopped suddenly. “By Jove, Sperry,” I said. “I remember now. My notes of the sittings were in my overcoat.”
“And they are gone?”
“They are gone.”