Weldon had taken the medium's hands. Immediately he did so, Navarro heaved a portentous sigh. I watched his face very narrowly, and somewhat to my surprise I observed it to turn to a horrid, fishy, whitish-yellow colour. Presently his eyelids slightly opened, disclosing the whites. The eyes were fixed upwards rigidly. He looked simply monstrous. For the first time I doubted his mala fides. There were many signs of cataleptic trance about him. I stole over to the foot of the couch and inserted a pin into the calf of his leg. Not a muscle twitched. Evidently he had hypnotised himself. I tried the other leg, with an equal result. I became furious. It seemed just possible that the fellow had some esoteric faculty after all. Science, of course, scouts the phenomena of clairvoyancy, but in my younger days I had witnessed so many experiments with hypnotised subjects in Paris that I had ever since kept an open mind on the question. This time we waited for quite a while for the medium to begin his manifestations. Perhaps ten minutes passed and he was still silent. But by that time I felt convinced of his unconsciousness. "Ask him some question, Weldon," I said quietly. "He is not shamming, I believe. In my opinion he is in hypnotic sleep and cannot act as his own Barnum." Weldon laughed, but before he could adopt my hint Miss Ottley glided to the couch and standing at the head of it put her fingers lightly on the medium's eyes. "I know what to do," she said, looking at me. "I have seen him in this state before. He is not a charlatan, Dr. Pinsent, at least when he is like this. Presently you will see. He will astonish you, I think." "I wish you'd ask him where the lost key of my saratoga is, May," whispered Weldon. Navarro answered the question instantly, and in his natural reverberating baritone. "It is lying on the top of the canopy of your bed in your bedroom in Jermyn Street." "By Gad!" cried Weldon. "That's where it is as sure as I stand here. I tossed it up there a month ago and more--and forgot all about it." "Hush!" said Miss Ottley. "Think of Dr. Belleville, Frankfort, please." Weldon frowned. "You might have chosen a pleasanter topic," he muttered. "Hush!" said the girl again. A moment later she bent over the medium. "Speak!" she commanded. "Tell us what you see!"