He nodded.

“It looks like it.  And this man who was there last night—­”

“Why a man?”

“He took your overcoat, instead of his own, didn’t he?  It may have been—­it’s curious, isn’t it, that we’ve had no suggestion of Ellingham in all the rest of the material.”

Like the other members of the Neighborhood Club, he had a copy of the proceedings at the two seances, and now he brought them out and fell to studying them.

“She was right about the bullet in the ceiling,” he reflected.  “I suppose you didn’t look for the box of shells for the revolver?”

“I meant to, but it slipped my mind.”

He shuffled the loose pages of the record.  “Cane—­washed away by the water—­a knee that is hurt—­the curtain would have been safer —­Hawkins—­the drawing-room furniture is all over the house.  That last, Horace, isn’t pertinent.  It refers clearly to the room we were in.  Of course, the point is, how much of the rest is also extraneous matter?” He re-read one of the sheets.  “Of course that belongs, about Hawkins.  And probably this:  ’It will be terrible if the letters are found.’  They were in the pocketbook, presumably.”

He folded up the papers and replaced them in a drawer.

“We’d better go back to the house,” he said.  “Whoever took your overcoat by mistake probably left one.  The difficulty is, of course, that he probably discovered his error and went back again last night.  Confound it, man, if you had thought of that at the time, we would have something to go on today.”

“If I had thought of a number of things I’d have stayed out of the place altogether,” I retorted tartly.  “I wish you could help me about the fire-tongs, Sperry.  I don’t seem able to think of any explanation that Mrs. Johnson would be willing to accept.”

“Tell her the truth.”

“I don’t think you understand,” I explained.  “She simply wouldn’t believe it.  And if she did I should have to agree to drop the investigation.  As a matter of fact, Sperry, I had resorted to subterfuge in order to remain out last evening, and I am bitterly regretting my mendacity.”

But Sperry has, I am afraid, rather loose ideas.

“Every man,” he said, “would rather tell the truth, but every woman makes it necessary to lie to her.  Forget the fire-tongs, Horace, and forget Mrs. Johnson to-night.  He may not have dared to go back in day-light for his overcoat.”

“Very well,” I agreed.

But it was not very well, and I knew it.  I felt that, in a way, my whole domestic happiness was at stake.  My wife is a difficult person to argue with, and as tenacious of an opinion once formed as are all very amiable people.  However, unfortunately for our investigation, but luckily for me, under the circumstances, Sperry was called to another city that afternoon and did not return for two days.

It was, it will be recalled, on the Thursday night following the second sitting that I had gone alone to the Wells house, and my interview with Sperry was on Friday.  It was on Friday afternoon that I received a telephone message from Mrs. Dane.