“You think I am frightened,” she said slowly.  “And I am, terribly frightened.  But not about discovery.  That has come, and cannot be helped.”

“Then why?”

“How does this woman, this medium, know these things?” Her voice rose, with an unexpected hysterical catch.  “It is superhuman.  I am almost mad.”

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” Sperry said soothingly.  “Be sure that it is not what you think it is, Elinor.  There’s a simple explanation, and I think I’ve got it.  What about the stick that was taken from my library?”

“Will you tell me how you came to have it, doctor?”

“Yes.  I took it from the lower hall the night—­the night it happened.”

“It was Charlie Ellingham’s.  He had left it there.  We had to have it, doctor.  Alone it might not mean much, but with the other things you knew—­tell them, Clara.”

“I stole it from your office,” Clara said, looking straight ahead.  “We had to have it.  I knew at the second sitting that it was his.”

“When did you take it?”

“On Monday morning, I went for Mrs. Dane’s medicine, and you had promised her a book.  Do you remember?  I told your man, and he allowed me to go up to the library.  It was there, on the table.  I had expected to have to search for it, but it was lying out.  I fastened it to my belt, under my long coat.”

“And placed it in the rack at Mrs. Dane’s?” Sperry was watching her intently, with the same sort of grim intentness he wears when examining a chest.

“I put it in the closet in my room.  I meant to get rid of it, when I had a little time.  I don’t know how it got downstairs, but I think—­”

“Yes?”

“We are house-cleaning.  A housemaid was washing closets.  I suppose she found it and, thinking it was one of Mrs. Dane’s, took it downstairs.  That is, unless—­” It was clear that, like Elinor, she had a supernatural explanation in her mind.  She looked gaunt and haggard.

“Mr. Ellingham was anxious to get it,” she finished.  “He had taken Mr. Johnson’s overcoat by mistake one night when you were both in the house, and the notes were in it.  He saw that the stick was important.”

“Clara,” Sperry asked, “did you see, the day you advertised for your bag, another similar advertisement?”

“I saw it.  It frightened me.”

“You have no idea who inserted it?”

“None whatever.”

“Did you ever see Miss Jeremy before the first sitting?  Or hear of her?”

“Never.”

“Or between the seances?”

Elinor rose and drew her veil down.  “We must go,” she said.  “Surely now you will cease these terrible investigations.  I cannot stand much more.  I am going mad.”

“There will be no more seances,” Sperry said gravely.

“What are you going to do?” She turned to me, I daresay because I represented what to her was her supreme dread, the law.