"'And I hope you'll be comfortable,' says she, 'I'm coming up this evening to see if your room is all right and if there's anything you want. You'll like my servants, I think.' "Right there I began to be ashamed of our game, and it hasn't got any less, I'll tell _you_. "It was hard work getting the job to runnin', and I didn't have much time for pokin' into things. When I did git room to turn around, I went through that whole house pretendin' to take inventories. I didn't find a thing that looked out of place, or faky. Not a scrap of notes on sitters, not a trap, not a slate, not a thread of silk mull, not a spark of phosphorus. I wasn't fool enough to break the rule about coming downstairs when she had sitters. Let her catch me spyin', and the bird's gone. But last Sunday night I had a fair chance. I knew it would come if I waited. There's three servants under me--Mary the cook, who's a hussy; and Martin the furnace man, who's a drunk; and Ellen, who's a fool. I'd listened to 'em talking and I'd pumped 'em gradual, but I couldn't git a definite thing--and what the help don't know about the crooked places in their bosses ain't generally worth knowin'. Ellen, the maid, ought to 'a' been my best card--her sittin' every night at the door catchin' what comes out of the parlors. She couldn't tell a thing. All she knew was that she heard a lot of talk in low tones, and it was something about spirits and the devil, and then she crossed herself. As help goes, they like Mrs. Markham, which is a good sign. "Last Sunday, at supper, Ellen begins to complain of a pain in her head. It seemed to me that I'd better take, just once, the chance of being recognized by a sitter, an' 'tend door for the seance. So I begun with Ellen. "'You're sick, child,' says I, havin' her alone at the time. 'It looks to me like neuralgia.'