Lewisham took himself in hand at this stage.  What was happening?  He must attend.  Was he really watching as he should do?  He had been wool-gathering.  There were no such things as spirits, mediums were humbugs, and he was here to prove that sole remaining Gospel.  But he must keep up with things—­he was missing points.  What was that scent of violets?  And who had set the musical box going?  The Medium, of course; but how?  He tried to recall whether he had heard a rustling or detected any movement before the music began.  He could not recollect.  Come! he must be more on the alert than this!

He became acutely desirous of a successful exposure.  He figured the dramatic moment he had prepared with Smithers—­Ethel a spectator.  He peered suspiciously into the darkness.

Somebody shuddered again, someone opposite him this time.  He felt Lagune’s finger quiver still more palpably, and then suddenly the raps began, abruptly, all about him. Rap!—­making him start violently.  A swift percussive sound, tap, rap, dap, under the table, under the chair, in the air, round the cornices.  The Medium groaned again and shuddered, and his nervous agitation passed sympathetically round the circle.  The music seemed to fade to the vanishing point and grew louder again.

How was it done?

He heard Lagune’s voice next him speaking with a peculiar quality of breathless reverence, “The alphabet?” he asked, “shall we—­shall we use the alphabet?”

A forcible rap under the table.

“No!” interpreted the voice of the Medium.

The raps were continued everywhere.

Of course it was trickery, Lewisham endeavoured to think what the mechanism was.  He tried to determine whether he really had the Medium’s little finger touching his.  He peered at the dark shape next him.  There was a violent rapping far away behind them with an almost metallic resonance.  Then the raps ceased, and over the healing silence the little jet of melody from the musical box played alone.  And after a moment that ceased also....

The stillness was profound, Mr. Lewisham was now highly strung.  Doubts assailed him suddenly, and an overwhelming apprehension, a sense of vast occurrences gathering above him.  The darkness was a physical oppression....

He started.  Something had stirred on the table.  There was the sharp ping of metal being struck.  A number of little crepitating sounds like paper being smoothed.  The sound of wind without the movement of air.  A sense of a presence hovering over the table.

The excitement of Lagune communicated itself in convulsive tremblings; the Medium’s hand quivered.  In the darkness on the table something faintly luminous, a greenish-white patch, stirred and hopped slowly among the dim shapes.

The object, whatever it was, hopped higher, rose slowly in the air, expanded.  Lewisham’s attention followed this slavishly.  It was ghostly—­unaccountable—­marvellous.  For the moment he forgot even Ethel.  Higher and higher this pallid luminosity rose overhead, and then he saw that it was a ghostly hand and arm, rising, rising.  Slowly, deliberately it crossed the table, seemed to touch Lagune, who shivered.  It moved slowly round and touched Lewisham.  He gritted his teeth.