“Perhaps you don’t see why I done that.  ’T was to give her an opening.  First move, when you’re fakin’ on a big scale, is to make dopes out of your servants.  Git ’em to swallow the whole thing; then find the yellow spot, work it, and pull ’em into your fakin’.  But she never followed the lead, even so much as to seem interested.  ‘Indeed?’ says she.  ’Well, I see only a few callers, and usually in the evening.  I’m a little particular about bein’ disturbed at such times, and I must ask you not to come below the top floor on such evenings.  Ellen, the parlor maid, always sits by the front door to answer the bell.’  That was a relief.  I was afraid I’d have to answer bells, which would have been risky.  Dopes that follow big mediums go to little ones sometimes; there was a chance that I’d let in one of my own sitters and be recognized.  And the arrangement didn’t look faky to me as it may to you; for a fact, you’re just a bundle of nerves when you’re coming in and out of real control.

“‘And I hope you’ll be comfortable,’ says she, ’I’m coming up this evening to see if your room is all right and if there’s anything you want.  You’ll like my servants, I think.’

“Right there I began to be ashamed of our game, and it hasn’t got any less, I’ll tell you.

“It was hard work getting the job to runnin’, and I didn’t have much time for pokin’ into things.  When I did git room to turn around, I went through that whole house pretendin’ to take inventories.  I didn’t find a thing that looked out of place, or faky.  Not a scrap of notes on sitters, not a trap, not a slate, not a thread of silk mull, not a spark of phosphorus.  I wasn’t fool enough to break the rule about coming downstairs when she had sitters.  Let her catch me spyin’, and the bird’s gone.  But last Sunday night I had a fair chance.  I knew it would come if I waited.  There’s three servants under me—­Mary the cook, who’s a hussy; and Martin the furnace man, who’s a drunk; and Ellen, who’s a fool.  I’d listened to ’em talking and I’d pumped ’em gradual, but I couldn’t git a definite thing—­and what the help don’t know about the crooked places in their bosses ain’t generally worth knowin’.  Ellen, the maid, ought to ‘a’ been my best card—­her sittin’ every night at the door catchin’ what comes out of the parlors.  She couldn’t tell a thing.  All she knew was that she heard a lot of talk in low tones, and it was something about spirits and the devil, and then she crossed herself.  As help goes, they like Mrs. Markham, which is a good sign.

“Last Sunday, at supper, Ellen begins to complain of a pain in her head.  It seemed to me that I’d better take, just once, the chance of being recognized by a sitter, an’ ’tend door for the seance.  So I begun with Ellen.

“‘You’re sick, child,’ says I, havin’ her alone at the time.  ’It looks to me like neuralgia.’