"Not clearly, but unmistakably. As I say, it was so still that every sound seemed exaggerated. But I heard Eric's voice as truly as I stand here. Explain it, Beatrice." "How can I? Except to say that there must have been some human agency. I don't believe for a minute that Eric's ghost returned the jewels." "But Natalie says he has haunted this studio ever since he died. She says he will continue to do so, until his murderer is found and punished." "I have heard of such things, but I can't believe it in this case." "What will Barry say? He was so imperative that Natalie should not try the trance business." "I know it. But I can't see that she has done any real harm. The jewels are here--isn't it marvellous, Joyce? How could they have been brought in without your knowing it?" "Oh, as to that, I'm sure Natalie produced them after I left the room. I wish now I'd stayed here. My one thought was to get somebody else to corroborate the mysterious happenings." "You're sure the jewels were not here on the table when you went out of the room?" "I can't say positively. They might have been. You see, I never thought of looking for them. I looked about the room to see if any person were present, and I looked thoroughly, too. But I didn't look on the table." "Nobody could have come in at the Billiard Room door?" "No, we sat right there, you know. The case is just the same as on the night of the murder. That's why Natalie insists that Eric's spirit turned off the lights and put the jewels on the table." "Are the jewels all there? Are any missing?" "I've not looked them over. At a first glance, they seem to be all right." "It must be that some one stole them, and just now returned them. There's no other possible explanation, Joyce. It throws suspicion back to Mr. Truxton or----" "Or Eugene Courtenay, you were going to say! Now, he didn't do it, Beatrice--I know he didn't." Weary and afraid, full of nameless horrors and uncertainties, Joyce locked the jewels in her dressing-room safe, and went to bed. She and Beatrice both felt they could stand no more that night, and notifying the police of the finding of the jewels must wait until the next day. And next day, when Bobsy Roberts came and heard the strange story he was probably the most bewildered man on the force. "Tell it all over again," he said, after hearing the tale from Joyce. Patiently she repeated the details. "Where is Miss Vernon?" he asked abruptly. "You can't see her to-day," returned Joyce, "the poor child is prostrated." "What did she hope to gain by her trance performance?" asked Roberts, mulling over Joyce's story. "She hoped to get some sort of manifestation that would tell her who was the murderer. She never thought of having the jewels restored."