Hamar was undressing, when there came a loud ring at the telephone, outside his door.

“Holloa!” he called out, “who are you?”

“Are you Mr. Hamar?” a voice asked, breathlessly.

Hamar replied in the affirmative, and the voice continued—­

“I’m Mrs. Anderson-Waite, of 30 Queen’s Mansions, Queen’s Gate.  I have been holding a seance here, with some of my friends, and most extraordinary things have happened, and are still happening.  There are violent knockings on the wall and ceiling, and the table has become positively dangerous.  It has repeatedly sprung into the air, and savagely assaulted several of the sitters.  It has thrown one lady on to the floor, and despite our efforts to prevent it, has rampled on her so viciously that she is badly hurt, and the doctor who has just arrived thinks very seriously of it.  We wanted to stop, but some strange power seems to be forcing us to go on.  The table has rapped out your name and address, and says it has something important to communicate with you, and that unless you come here at once, it won’t answer for the consequences.”

“All right!” Hamar said.  “I’ll come.  I’ll be with you in less than half an hour.”

When Hamar arrived at Queen’s Mansions, he found a terrified party of ladies awaiting him in the entrance to the flat.

“Thank goodness, you’ve come!” they exclaimed, all together.  “We’ve been having an awful time.  The table has driven us out of the drawing-room—­it is obsessed by a devil.”

“Let me have a look at it,” Hamar said, “and I’ll soon tell you.”

The leader of the party, Mrs. Anderson-Waite, very cautiously opened the drawing-room door, and Hamar peered in.  In the centre of the room was a large, round, ebony table, that commenced to rock, in the most sinister fashion, the moment Hamar looked at it.

“It evidently wants to speak with me,” Hamar said; “you had better leave me here with it for a few minutes.”

“Do take care,” Mrs. Anderson-Waite said, as she shut the door.  “It may want to murder you.  If it does, ring this bell, and we will all come to your assistance.”

Hamar gave her an assuring smile, but he was by no means as much at ease as he pretended to be.  He stood staring at the table, too fascinated to take his eyes off it, and too afraid to move.

At length, however, pulling himself together, and convinced the table was the medium, through which the Unknown wished to give him fresh instructions, he stealthily approached it.  He addressed it, and it rapped out to him that he must at once obtain pen and ink and take down what it wished to say.

Obtaining the requisite materials from Mrs. Anderson-Waite, he sat down and was preparing to write on his knee, when the table told him to rub its surface briskly with his left hand, to trace on it the three Atlantean symbols, i.e. a club foot, a hand with the fingers clenched and the long pointed thumb standing upright, and a bat—­and then—­to place his paper on it, and transcribe what it had to say.