The other guests of the week-end party, although they had shown no signs of disapproving Vernon’s choice of topic when he had irrelevantly introduced it, had accepted their cue with a tactful readiness. Little Harrison was their host, and if he wished, as he obviously did, to avoid this topic of Psychical Research, it was their duty to support him. Moreover, Mrs. Harrison had cut in almost at once, with that bird-like flustered air of hers, to the effect that spiritualism was almost “worse than religion with some people” and never led to anything but recriminations. Vernon had smiled with a fine effect of self-control when she had said that, but before he could defend himself, Harrison at the other end of the table had got under way with an anecdote of Lenin’s pre-revolution career in Switzerland. And directly dinner was finished, he had suggested that they should take their coffee and liqueurs on the lawn under the cedar. There was excuse enough--it was a wonderful night--but Greatorex, the leader-writer, who had acquired a habit of always looking for secret motives, was probably right in calling the move to the garden “a clever dodge.” “Dodge?” enquired young Fell listlessly. He had sat through dinner with a melancholy air of wondering how people could be interested in spirits whether of the dead or of the Russians; but Greatorex had been too much engrossed in drawing his own inferences to take any notice of Fell’s distraction. “Rather,” he said, taking Fell’s arm. “Gives Harrison the chance of slipping off when he can’t stand it any longer. In a room, it’s a bit pointed to get up and go away, but out here Vernon’ll probably find himself addressing Harrison’s empty chair.” Fell sighed. “What’s he want--Vernon, I mean?” he asked indifferently. Greatorex was willing enough to explain. “He wants to bring Harrison to book,” he said, leading his companion down towards the sunk fence out of earshot of the rest of the party. “You see, Vernon has been tremendously interested in that book of Schrenck-Notsing’s. You’ve seen it, I expect? It’s all about materialisations. Extraordinary stuff. They did get amazing results. The book’s full of photographs of the materialisations. Licked Crookes’s _Katie King_ into a cocked hat. Well, Vernon’s been writing about it all over the place. Says it proves that there is a form of matter unknown to science, and that until the sceptics have disproved that, they had better shut up about the problem of immortality and so on. And then Harrison came out with a leader in the Supplement, pooh-poohing the whole affair. Clever stuff, of course, but not very sound on the logical side.” “And Vernon wants to pin him down, I suppose?” Fell commented tepidly.