"Madness can be handed down to men or women equally," said the physician gravely.
Claire rose suddenly, pushing back her chair so abruptly that it overturned and fell to the ground.
She was very pale and the nervous motions of her fingers were very apparent."You - you will not be long, will you?" she begged.
"Mrs Thompson will be here in a few minutes now."
"One glass of port, and I will be with you," declared Sir Alington. "To see this wonderful Mrs Thompson's performance is what I have come for, is it not?
Ha, ha! Not that I needed any inducement." He bowed.
Claire gave a faint smile of acknowledgment and passed out of the room with Mrs Eversleigh."Afraid I've been talking shop," remarked the physician as he resumed his seat. "Forgive me, my dear fellow."
"Not at all," said Trent perfunctorily.
He looked strained and worried.
For the first time Dermot felt an outsider in the company of his friend.
Between these two was a secret that even an old friend might not share.
And yet the whole thing was fantastic and incredible.
What had he to go upon?
Nothing but a couple of glances and a woman's nervousness.
They lingered over their wine but a very short time, and arrived up in the drawing room just as Mrs Thompson was announced.
The medium was a plump middle-aged woman, atrociously dressed in magenta velvet, with a loud, rather common voice."Hope I'm not late, Mrs Trent," she said cheerily.
"You did say nine o'clock, didn't you?"
"You are quite punctual, Mrs Thompson," said Claire in her sweet, slightly husky voice. "This is our little circle."No further introductions were made, as was evidently the custom.
The medium swept them all with a shrewd, penetrating eye."I hope we shall get some good results," she remarked briskly.
"I can't tell you how I hate it when I go out and I can't give satisfaction, so to speak. It just makes me mad.
But I think Shiromako (my Japanese control, you know) will be able to get through all right tonight.
I'm feeling ever so fit, and I refused the welsh rarebit, fond of cheese though I am."Dermot listened, half-amused, half-disgusted.
How prosaic the whole thing was!
And yet, was he not judging foolishly?
Everything, after all, was natural - the powers claimed by mediums were natural powers, as yet imperfectly understood.
A great surgeon might be wary of indigestion on the eve of a delicate operation.
Why not Mrs Thompson?Chairs were arranged in a circle, lights so that they could conveniently be raised and lowered.
Dermot noticed that there was no question of tests, or of Sir Alington satisfying himself as to the conditions of the seance.
No, this business of Mrs Thompson was only a blind.
Sir Alington was here for quite another purpose.
Claire's mother, Dermot remembered, had died abroad.
There had been some mystery about her...
Hereditary...With a jerk he forced his mind back to the surroundings of the moment.
Everyone took their places, and the lights were turned out, all but a small red-shaded one on a far table.
For a while nothing was heard but the low, even breathing of the medium.
Gradually it grew more and more stertorous.
Then, with a suddenness that made Dermot jump, a loud rap came from the far end of the room.
It was repeated from the other side.
Then a perfect crescendo of raps was heard.
They died away, and a sudden high peal of mocking laughter rang through the room.
Then silence, broken by a voice utterly unlike that of Mrs Thompson, a high-pitched, quaintly inflected voice."I am here, gentlemen," it said. "Yess, I am here.
You wish ask me things?"
"Who are you?
Shiromako?"
"Yess.
I Shiromako.
I pass over long ago.
I work.
I very happy."
Further details of Shiromako's life followed.