Bubbles gave a quick, queer look at her aunt.  “Mr. Tapster told me all about her last night,” she answered.  “I suppose because he’s so rich himself he takes a kind of morbid interest in other rich people.  He said that she’s the owner of one of the biggest metal-broking businesses—­whatever that may mean—­in the world.  But her uncle and aunt have never allowed her to know anyone or to see anyone outside their own tiresome, fuggy old lot.  They’ve a perfect terror of fortune-hunters, it seems.  The poor girl’s hardly ever spoken to a man—­not to what I should call a man!  I’m surprised they allowed her to come here.  I heard her tell Sir Lyon last night at dinner that this was the first time she’d ever paid what she called a country visit.  Apparently Harrogate or Brighton is those awful old people’s idea of a pleasant change.  Up to now Miss Helen’s own idea of heaven seems to have been Strathpeffer.”

“How very strange!” But Blanche Farrow was not thinking of Helen Brabazon’s possible idea of heaven as she uttered the three words.

Bubbles chuckled.  “I touched the old gentleman up a bit yesterday, didn’t I, Blanche?”

This gave her aunt the opportunity for which she was seeking.  “You did!  And as a result he made up some cock-and-bull excuse and went back to London this morning.  Lionel is very much put out about it.”

“I should have thought Lionel would have been glad,” said Bubbles, and there came into her voice the touch of slight, almost insolent, contempt with which she generally spoke of Lionel Varick.

“He was very far from glad; he was furious,” said Blanche gravely.

“I only did it because he said he wanted his guests entertained,” said Bubbles sulkily.

And then, after there had been a rather long silence between them, she asked:  “What did you think of it, Blanche?  You’d never been at a seance before, had you?”

Miss Farrow hesitated.  “Of course I was impressed,” she acknowledged.  “I kept wondering how you did it.  I mean that I kept wondering how those people’s thoughts were conveyed to your brain.”

“Then you didn’t believe that I saw anything of the things I said I saw?” said Bubbles slowly.  “You thought it was all fudge on my part?”

Her aunt reddened.  “I don’t quite know what you mean by saying that.  Of course I don’t believe you saw the—­the figures you described so clearly.  But I realized that in some queer way you must have got hold of the memory of your victims.  Lionel admits that you did so in his case.”

“Does he indeed?” Bubbles spoke with sharp sarcasm.

There rose before her a vision of her host’s pale, startled face.  In some ways he had been the most inwardly perturbed of her last night’s sitters, and she, the medium, had been well aware of it.

“I wonder,” she said suddenly and inconsequently, “if Lionel has some enemy—­I mean a woman—­in his life, of whom his friends know nothing?”