“‘Mrs. Markham,’ she says, ’wanted that I should tell you she has sitters unexpected.  There’s some of her devil doin’s going on downstairs to-night.  She wanted me to catch you when you came in and ask you to go very quiet to your room.’

“While I went upstairs, I listened hard.  Just before I came out on the landing of the servants’ hall, I heard a bell ring, away down below.  Just a little ring—­b-r-r.  Now, you know if there’s one thing more ’n another that I’ve got, it’s ears—­and ears that remember, too.  I hadn’t been a day in that house when I knew every bell in it and who was ringin’ besides.  This wasn’t any of ’em.  But that wasn’t the funny thing. It lasted just about as long as my foot rested on a step of the stairs.  I didn’t make the break of going back and ringin’ again; but I remembered that step—­third from the top.

“’T ain’t easy to admit you’ve been fooled, and ’t ain’t easy to give up somebody you’ve believed in.  I couldn’t have slept that night even if I’d wanted.  I opened the registers in my room, because open registers help you to hear things, and sat in the darkness.  I could catch that the sitting was over, because the front door slammed.  Then Ellen came upstairs, and the bell rang b-r-r again.  I could hear someone come upstairs to the second floor, where Mrs. Markham and the girl have their rooms.  I listened for that bell when she struck the stairs.  I couldn’t hear nothing.  The current has been switched off, thinks I. Maybe it was ten minutes later when I got a faint kind of thud, like somebody had let down a folding bed, though there ain’t a one of those man-killers in our house.  Sort of stirred up a recollection, that sound.  I lay puzzling, and the answer came like a flash.  Worst fake outfit I ever had anything to do with was Vango’s Spirit Thought Institute in St. Paul.  I’ve told you before how ashamed I am of that.  I left because there’s some kinds of work I won’t stand for.  Well, he used a ceiling trap for his materializin’; though the wainscot is a sight better and more up-to-date in my experience.  When he let it drop careless, in practicing before the seance, it used to make a noise like that.  I fell asleep by-and-bye; and out of my dreams, which was troubled and didn’t bring nothing definite, I got the general impression that Mrs. Markham wasn’t all right and that I’d been fooled.

“Mrs. Markham and the little girl went to the matinee next afternoon.  Now I’m comin’ to her.  You let me tell this story my way.  The cook was bakin’ in the kitchen, Ellen the parlor maid, who had to stay home to answer bells, was gossipin’ with her.  Martin was cleanin’ out the furnace.  I had the run of the house.  First thing I looked at was the third step from the top of the stairs.  I worked out two tacks in the carpet—­wasn’t much trouble; they come out like they was used to it.  I pulled the carpet sideways.  Sure enough, there was a wide crack just below the step, and when I peeked in, I could