"In an instant all was noise and confusion. The sea-captain struck a match, Mr. Ravenshaw produced an end of wax candle, and everybody crowded round the girl, talking and exclaiming unrestrainedly. "'There, now; didn't I tell you so? All a cheat from beginning to end.' "'He ought to be prosecuted.' "'Nobody but fools would have ever believed in such stuff.' "'Look here!' cried the sea-captain, 'she was held up by a straight iron rod which passes through the floor, and a cross-bar, like a pantomime fairy. She was strapped to the cross-bar, and the strap broke and let her go. She's the artfullest hussy I ever had anything to do with; for I'll be hanged if she hadn't almost taken me in with that face and voice of hers. 'Waft me, angels,' and looking just like an angel, and all the time this swindler was strapping her on to the iron bar.' "The swindler defended himself angrily, in a jumble of German and English, getting more German as he grew more desperate. They were all clamouring round him. The flaxen-headed Frau had slipped away in the beginning of the skirmish. The golden-haired girl had fainted--a genuine faint, apparently, whatever else might be false--and her head was lying on Mrs. Ravenshaw's shoulder; that lady's womanly compassion for helpless girlhood being stronger even than her indignation at having been hoaxed. "'Give us back our money!' cried three or four voices out of the dimness. 'Give us back our money for the whole series of _séances_!' "'Half-guinea tickets! Dear enough if the thing had been genuine!' "'An impudent swindle!' "'Will somebody run for the police?' said the sea-captain. 'I'll stay and take care they don't give us the slip. Who'll go?' "There were half a dozen volunteers, who began to grope their way to the door. "'One's enough,' said the sea-captain. 'Take care that fellow doesn't make a bolt of it.' "The warning came too late. As he spoke, spirit-lips blew out the candle which Mr. Ravenshaw was patiently holding above the group of fainting girl and kindly woman, like one of the living candlesticks in the 'Legend of Montrose,' and the room was dark. There was a sound of scuffling, a rush, the door opened and shut again, and a key turned in the lock with decisive emphasis. "'Done!' cried the sea-captain, making his way to the curtained window. "It was curtained and shuttered, and the opening of the shutters occupied some minutes, even for the seaman's practised hands. There were bolts--old-fashioned bolts--with mechanism designed to defy burglary, in the days when wealth and fashion inhabited Bloomsbury. Wax matches sputtered and emitted faint gleams and flashes of light here and there in the room. Two or three people had found their way to the locked door, and were shaking and kicking it savagely, without effect. "At last the bolts gave way, the deft hands having found the trick of them. The seaman flung open the shutters, and the light of the street-lamp streamed into the room.