Then there came a quick peremptory rap, not I thought on the front door, but somewhere in the room. ‘It’s the Thing,’ said he. To-day, as I speak to you, I suppose it was. But on that evening it seemed only like a challenge. I wanted to demonstrate its absurdity. ‘For five years, on and off, I’ve been studying rank spiritualism,’ he said. ‘I haven’t told you before, because I wanted to lay before you certain phenomena, which I can’t explain, but which now seem to me to be at my command. You shall see and hear, and then decide if you will help me.’ ‘And in order to let me see better, you are proposing to put out the lights,’ I said. ‘Yes; you will see why.’ ‘I am here as a sceptic,’ said I. ‘Scep away,’ said he. Next moment the room was in darkness, except for a very faint glow of firelight. The window-curtains were thick, and no street-illumination penetrated them, and the familiar, cheerful sounds of pedestrians and wheeled traffic came in muffled. I was at the side of the table towards the door; Louis was opposite me, for I could see his figure dimly silhouetted against the glow from the smouldering fire. ‘Put your hands on the table,’ he said, ‘quite lightly, and--how shall I say it--expect.’ Still protesting in spirit, I expected. I could hear his breathing rather quickened, and it seemed to me odd that anybody could find excitement in standing in the dark over a large mahogany table, expecting. Then--through my finger-tips, laid lightly on the table, there began to come a faint vibration, like nothing so much as the vibration through the handle of a kettle when water is beginning to boil inside it. This got gradually more pronounced and violent till it was like the throbbing of a motor-car. It seemed to give off a low humming note. Then quite suddenly the table seemed to slip from under my fingers and began very slowly to revolve. ‘Keep your hands on it and move with it,’ said Louis, and as he spoke I saw his silhouette pass away from in front of the fire, moving as the table moved. For some moments there was silence, and we continued, rather absurdly, to circle round keeping step, so to speak, with the table. Then Louis spoke again, and his voice was trembling with excitement. ‘Are you there?’ he said. There was no reply, of course, and he asked it again. This time there came a rap like that which I had thought during dinner to be the postman. But whether it was that the room was dark, or that despite myself I felt rather excited too, it seemed to me now to be far louder than before. Also it appeared to come neither from here nor there, but to be diffused through the room.