“Sure! He wouldn’t have it at first. Then he kinder smiled and half owned up. And once I seen him with his materializin’ wand, sittin’ in the room almost dark.” “His what?” “Materializin’ wand. Spirit-rod, you know. As tall as himself and all shiny and slick. It was slim and sort o’ knobby like this wood—what’s the name of it, now?—they make fish poles out of. Only the real big-bugs in spiritualism use ’em. They’re dangerous. You wouldn’t caich me touchin’ it or goin’ in there even now. I says to Mrs. Kraus, I says—” And so the stream of high-pitched, eager talk flowed until the two men escaped from it into the vacant apartment. This was much as Average Jones had seen on his former visit. Only the strange valise was missing. Going to the kitchen, which he opened through intermediate doors on a straight line with the front room, Average Jones inspected the window. The glass was thickly marked with faint, bluish blurs, being, indeed, almost opaque from them in the middle of the upper pane. There was nothing indicative below the window, unless it were a considerable amount of crumbled putty, which he fingered with puzzled curiosity. In the front room a mass of papers had been half burned. Some of them were local journals, mostly the _Evening Register_. A few were publications in the Arabic text. “Oriental newspapers,” remarked Bertram. Average Jones picked them up and began to fold them. From between two sheets fluttered a very small bit of paper, narrow and half curled, as if from the drying of mucilage. He lifted and read it. “Here we are again, Bert,” he remarked in his most casual tone. “The quality of _this_ Mercy is strained, all right.” The two men bent over the slip, studying it. The word was, as Average Jones had said, in a strained, effortful handwriting, and each letter stood distinct. These were the characters: MERCY “Is it mathematical, do you think, possibly?” asked Average Jones. “All alone by itself like that? Rather not! More like a label, if you ask me.” “The little sister of the label on the cabinet, then.” “_Cherchez la femme_,” observed Bertram. “It sounds like perfect foolishness to me; a swollen faced outlander who rules familiar spirits with a wand, and, between investigations in the realms of science, writes a girl’s name all over the place like a lovesick school-boy! Is Mercy his spirit-control, do you suppose?” “Oh, let’s get out of here,” said Average Jones. “I’m getting dizzy with it all. The next step,” he observed, as they walked slowly up the street, “is by train. Want to take a short trip to-morrow, Bert? Or, perhaps, several short trips?” “Whither away, fair youth?” “To the place where the fake ‘Smith’ and the lost Craig have been doing their little stunts.” “I thought you said Professor Gehren couldn’t tell you where Craig had gone.”