“Doubtless it is one of those that works with a wire,” he thought to himself, but he had no time to stop to look, for already Godfrey was climbing the stairs. Up he went, three floors, and up after him scrambled the Pasteur. Suddenly Godfrey stopped at a door and not waiting to ring the bell, knocked with his hand. Immediately it opened and Godfrey, with his companion, passed into a very dark hall round which were several other doors. Here in the gloom the Pasteur lost him. Godfrey had gone through one of the doors, but which he could not see. He stood still, listening, and presently heard a deep peculiar voice speaking English with a very foreign accent, say: “So you have come to see your godmamma, my dear little clever boy. Well, I thought you would, and last night I sent you a pretty messenger to give you remembrance.” Then the Pasteur found the handle of the door and entered the room. It was a curious place draped, not without taste of a bizarre kind, in vivid colours, wherein purple dominated, and it gave an idea of mingled magnificence and squalor. Some of the furniture was very good, as were one or two of the pictures, though all of it was of an odd and unusual make. Thus, the sideboard was shaped like a sarcophagus, and supported on solid sphinxes with gilded faces. In a corner of the room also stood an unwrapped mummy in a glass case. In the midst of all this stood a common deal table, whereon were a black bottle, and the remains of Madame’s meal, which seemed to have consisted of large supplies of underdone meat. In front of the fire was a large, well-worn couch, and by it a small stout table such as spiritualists use, on which gleamed a ball of glass or crystal. On this couch was seated Madame clad in a kind of black dressing-gown and a wide gold scarf tied about her ample waist. Her fat, massive face was painted and powdered; on her head she wore a kind of mantilla also gold-coloured, and about her neck a string of old Egyptian amulets. Anything more unwholesome or uncanny than were her general appearance and surroundings as the bright flames of the fire showed them in this stuffy, shadowed room, it would be impossible to imagine. “Sit down here by my side, my little son in the speerit, where I have made a place ready for you, and let me hold your hand while you tell me all that you have been doing and if you have been thinking much of me and that beautiful Eleanor whom I sent to see you last night,” went on Madame Riennes in her ogreish, purring voice, patting the sofa. Just then she looked up and caught sight of the Pasteur standing in the shadow. Staring at him with her fierce, prominent eyes, she started violently as though at last she had seen something of which she was afraid.