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Roy Glashan's Library
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The illustrations for this story have been omitted. They were drawn by George Brehm (1878-1966), whose works are not in the public domain.
The Red Book Magazine, September 1914,
with "The Clairvoyant Trust"
NOW Guy Garrick turns his efforts and his ability in the new criminal science to the aid of a beautiful girl.
"AUNT ELIZABETH is failing so rapidly, Mr. Garrick—and sometimes—I—I think must she must be going crazy!"
Guy Garrick looked sympathetically at the girl beside his desk. Alma Maynard was the niece of an old and childless couple, the Lyman Maynards, and it was about her aunt that she had called in great distress to see the young detective.
It needed only to hear her speak to enlist Garrick's sympathies, at least. Alma was a young woman of education and refinement, in whose face was a rare combination of beauty and intelligence—tall, dressed agreeably, a girl at whom one could not help looking.
"Your aunt must be quite advanced in age," Garrick hinted gently.
"I know it," hastened the girl, the tears gathering in her deep azure eyes. "And I cannot expect her to be—with us much longer. But you don't understand. It is not only that. Aunt Elizabeth lately has fallen completely under the domination of this Madame Sears, the medium, and I—I'm afraid it is affecting her mind."
Garrick nodded again sympathetically.
A keen glance at the girl had been enough to show him that to her the vagaries of the occult made as little appeal as they did to the typical normal healthy young American.
Alma drew from her handbag a newspaper clipping and handed it to him. It had been cut from among the advertisements, and read:
MADAME VESTA SEARS
Clairvoyant Medium
Educated in occult mysteries in Egypt and India. Without asking a question, tells your name, reads your secret troubles and the remedy. Great questions of life quickly solved. Overcomes all evil influences. Failure turned to success. The separated brought together. Advice on all affairs of life, love, marriage, divorce, business, speculation, and investment. Ever ready to help and advise those with capital to find a safe and paying investment. No fee until it succeeds. Could anything he fairer?
The Retreat. _______ West 45th St.
"Just what is it you fear?" asked Garrick, fingering the clipping. "What do you suspect?"
"Well," she began slowly, "both Uncle Lyman and Aunt Elizabeth have made wills—his estate to go to my cousin, Sanford, and my aunt's to go to me."
She paused, then went on frankly: "I live with them in Stuyvesant Square. I have a little income of my own—enough. I don't want Aunt Elizabeth to die for many, many years. But. Mr. Carrick, this Vesta Sears—oh, I fear her! I hate her!"
"There is no new will, is there?" asked Garrick.
The girl looked at him, alarmed. "Why, no, not as far as I know. I never thought of that. But, Mr. Garrick. there is no telling just how far that woman would dare to go with my aunt."
"You know her—you have seen her?"
"Never!" exclaimed Alma.
"How did your aunt get into her clutches?" inquired Garrick.
"Oh, she was in trouble, the trouble of the rich. Some one had made an offer for a piece of property. Should she sell or not? It might become more valuable and some one might offer more for it. She thought and thought. Uncle Lyman and my cousin Sanford, who is a lawyer, couldn't tell her. They dealt in the present. She heard of Madame Sears, who dealt in the future. She wasn't a believer, then, but she went to her. And Madame Sears told her that she would go into a trance and consult some of the great financiers who had passed over into the spirit world." Alma paused.
"I can foresee the result," put in Garrick. "I know that the confidence man, whether operating in gold bricks, wiretapping or fortune-telling, has one rule. He is never in doubt of the advisability of converting real estate or securities into cash. Cash is transferable. So it was, I suppose, with 'Madame' Sears."
"Exactly. The spirits said it was best to sell."
"In cases of the kind," observed Garrick, as she stopped again, "whether to do a thing or not is the question; there is one chance of being right and one of being wrong. It is an even guess. What did your aunt do?"
"She did not take the advice," answered Alma. "Soon, she found she was wrong. It was her error—not in judgment, but in not taking the advice of Madame Sears. Her belief became stronger. Now, I don't believe there is anything Madame Sears could tell her that she wouldn't do."
"I shall take a look at this Madame Sears," remarked Garrick. handing back the clipping. "Meanwhile, my dear Miss Maynard, don't alarm yourself. Everything will turn out all right in the end. I am sure."
"I hope so," she murmured gratefully, extending her little hand to him. "Thank you, and depend on me to help you, if you need me."
THE appealing pressure of Alma Maynard's soft hand still
clung to Garrick as, a few minutes later, he left his
office and hurried uptown to look over the temple of the
occult so alluringly advertised as "The Retreat."
It was an old-fashioned, high-stooped, brownstone house of a generation ago, just far enough from Fifth Avenue not to be fashionable and near enough to be ultra-respectable.
Garrick walked past, taking in the house with a quick glance. It was flanked by two others in the row which bore the unmistakable signs of being boarding houses of the better class.
He turned at the corner and, after a pause, went back and mounted the steps. As he did so, he had a sort of sensation that he was being watched from behind the drawn shades. He rang the bell, however, and a moment later a turbaned East Indian, who looked suspiciously like a mulatto from the San Juan Hill district of negro homes not a score of blocks away, admitted him with a laboriously acquired salaam.
It was a large reception room into which Garrick was admitted. The esoteric apartment was exquisitely fitted. Shades were drawn and a lamp burned dimly on the table, a suggestive lamp whose standard was a pair of twisted serpents. The carpets were soft and of deep green; the draperies were cleverly covered by cabalistic signs. The air itself seemed to breathe a pungent yet restful odor.
Garrick entered with an assumed hesitation and embarrassment. There was nobody in the reception room; it must have been an off-day, for he had already noticed the splotches of oil on the pavement at the curb which told of a string of automobiles which must pull up before the door and wait.
The dusky, turbaned attendant immediately put him at his ease, however, and he gazed about curiously. There was no bustle, no hurry, no time, here.
"Will you wait a few minutes?" asked the attendant. "Madame has a client, but will see you soon."
Garrick acquiesced. It was an old game of the mediums, to keep a client waiting until the dreamy atmosphere of the place had its effect. He waited not one minute, or ten, but half an hour. Still, he was not to be taken in by such an old trick. He kept alert.
A couple of clients or prospective clients came in, middle-aged ladies, Garrick watched them furtively until he decided that aside from showing the character of Madame's patrons they were of no importance to him.
"Will you write your name and the questions you wish to ask on this slip of paper?" asked the attendant at length. "It will help you to concentrate."
He had been expecting it and had already framed the story he was to tell.
"I want to know," he wrote, "how to invest some money that has just come to me by my father's death."
"Now, fold up the paper," directed the attendant, who had remained ostentatiously at the further end of the room so that he could not possible see what was being written, "and keep it."
Garrick tore off the sheet from the pad and the servant took the pad.
It was an old trick. The second sheet had been treated so that when dusted over with a certain powder, the powder brought up on it the writing done with the hard pencil on the first sheet, which Garrick had retained and stowed away safely in his pocket.
Another wait followed, during which Garrick knew some one was at work "reading his mind" by means of the doctored pad.
A movement in the inner room told him that some one, perhaps another client, was leaving. He could not see who it was, and this was no time to arouse suspicion by any attempt to find out.
Fortunately, the draught from the open hall door as the attendant opened the street door swung aside the heavy portières for a moment, and Garrick caught a fleeting glimpse of a face which he stamped indelibly on his memory for future reference.
It was of a man, debonair, dashing, dressed in the height of fashion—a rather florid face, scarcely prepossessing. Just for a moment Garrick saw it. without himself being seen; then the turbaned attendant let the man out, with a bow just a trifle more deferential than usual.
Garrick waited until at last the folding doors at the far end of the reception room opened, and the mystic herself appeared, unannounced.
She advanced a step, then paused.
Garrick rose, and instinctively fell in with her mood, which was evidently that he should go to her, not she to him.
He moved forward, and she received him graciously, a striking picture silhouetted against the mysterious background which the open door half revealed, half concealed.
Vesta Sears was a woman of good poise, with a remarkably good figure and, when she spoke, a charming trace of foreign accent.
As she led Garrick along, the ubiquitous attendant silently closed the doors. The folds of her clinging, filmy, purplish house dress were like a fleecy cloud, bearing her up, as she seemed to glide, rather than to walk, into the room.
A diamond sparkled at her throat and a ring encircled her finger, but for the most part there was about her a rich simplicity that spoke of good taste.
Garrick watched her closely. Most striking, to him, were her dark hair and her dark, magnetic eyes—eyes that, no doubt, accounted for a good deal of her success in the profession she seemed to ply so naturally.
The inner room, into which they now entered, was a marvel of skill. In it there was the same curious aroma which was noticeable outside, only deeper. The lights were dimmer, the carpets and hangings darker, and there were plenty of easy-chairs and divans, inviting repose and abandon of the outside twentieth century world.
In the center of the room stood a little table of ebony over which was draped a dark velvet cover, and on the center of the table Garrick noticed a solid globe of crystal, nearly a foot in diameter, set in a black-velvet-lined box. It rested on a blackened sandalwood base, and the odor of sandalwood was heavy in the room.
Scarcely a word passed between them. It was as if she wished to convey the impression that it was not necessary, that to her his mind was an open book, Garrick could not but be impressed by the artistry of the woman, charlatan though he suspected her to be.
He sank back into the cushions of the chair which she indicated with a graceful wave of her perfectly formed forearm, while she leaned forward in rapt attention over the globe, resting her oval chin on her interlocked fingers.
For perhaps five minutes the adept gazed fixedly into the mysterious depths of the crystal.
It was only by the utmost effort of the will that Garrick could resist falling under the spell that was so cleverly woven about him.
At last she spoke, in soft, low, purring tones.
"I see you engaged in a transaction that will bring you great wealth," she murmured slowly, as if some unseen force, not herself, were impelling the words from her lips.
"I see you standing before a great door in a large white building in a big city.
"You go in. You ride up in the elevator. You enter the office of—yes—I can read the name on the door. It is the—the Mont Tresor Gold Mining Company.
"I see you talking with a man. You buy from him, as he sits before a great mahogany desk—something—there is on it the figure, and written also—one thousand—one thousand shares. I hear the man tell you they are twenty-five cents a share, and I see you pay him two hundred and fifty dollars."
Her voice faltered, then drowsed away. She reached over languidly and took a chocolate mechanically from a box on the table.
"It is a month later," she resumed, measuring her words as if each were freighted with fortune. "I can see that by the calendar that is hanging on the wall. Ah. I can see you enter the door again. You seem to have your stock certificates with you. The man, the same man I saw before, greets you.
"You hand him the stock and tell him you wish him to sell it. He says that he can arrange it and will sell it at the market price of seventy-five cents. Your stock has gone up two hundred per cent in a month. You have made a five-hundred-dollar gain on a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar investment."
Her voice ceased: she seemed to lapse again: then she trembled just a bit, drew herself up with a start, and apparently had no remembrance of what had just passed.
Garrick leaned forward eagerly.
"Where is this?" he almost begged. "Where can I find it? Direct me where you have seen me go."
"I don't know." she answered. "I shall have to go into another trance to follow you. It will mean a double fee. Somehow or other something seems to be working against me to-day."
"Try," urged Garrick, placing the money on a book.
Again Vesta leaned forward over the crystal.
"I see you walking down a street," she cried at length. "It is very crowded. Men almost run into you. Messenger boys dodge about you. Ah—there is the tall spire of a church at the end of it. It—it is Wall Street. High office buildings are all about but you do not stop—yes, you pause—one moment—I must read the name carved in the lintel of the huge granite doorway. It—it is the Wall Street lower. Again I see you. The name of the man—is—Tanner—yes, that is it, Stuart Tanner—Turner—no that is right—Tanner."
The minutes sped by as they chatted after the crystal-gazing. Madame Sears seemed never to be in a hurry. Outside, clients were absorbing the exotic atmosphere. Yet she did not let the time overrun itself. Without knowing just how it happened, Garrick found himself departing by another doorway, promising glibly to return soon. Smoothly the turbaned attendant salaamed him out.
HALF an hour later Garrick fulfilled the mystic's prophecy
by actually standing inside the door of the big white tower
building which she had described.
He was looking over the M's on the directory. As his eye ran down the list it rested for a moment on the name,
MAYNARD. S., LAWYER. 1026.
On down through the M's his eye traveled until at last he came to the name he was seeking:
MONT TRESOR GOLD MINING CO.. 1575.
Garrick moved a step or two and pursued his guest. Among the T's he came upon the name he was seeking:
TANNER. S.. 1575.
As he contemplated the name, he wondered whether it was a preconceived arrangement, this between Madame Sears and Tanner. He was determined to investigate.
As he opened the gilt-lettered door on the fifteenth floor, he could scarcely suppress an exclamation. There, standing before a large desk, was the dapper, debonair man whom he had seen for just a moment scarcely an hour before at The Retreat.
As the man glanced around, Garrick paused. "I came, recommended by Madame Vesta Sears," introduced Garrick.
"Oh—yes," greeted Tanner cordially. "Have a chair."
A moment later, Tanner, a born salesman, had Garrick listening attentively as he poured forth the merits of Mont Tresor Gold. Alluring, always, are tales of rich yellow metal lying in the hills awaiting only the upturning of the pick—of other ores, baser, but valuable also.
"Have you any big stockholders—prominent people?" fenced Garrick.
"Oh, yes," urged Tanner. "There is a Mrs. Maynard. Mrs. Lyman Maynard, you know. She owns thousands of shares. I guess if it's good enough for the Maynards, it's good enough for anyone."
Garrick said nothing. He already had reams of literature printed in the prismatic colors, charts, figures, government reports showing the assay of various ores, net dividends at the smelters, and the payments for bullion at the mint, a mass quite as cabalistic as the signs on the walls of The Retreat, statistics all calculated to inspire hope.
He rose to go, but Tanner followed him to the door, bent on making a sale if possible, Garrick deftly put him off. He was convinced—but he would have to realize cash on his property before he could invest, and that would take a few days.
He turned down the hall, after noticing that the door of the office next to the mining company was blank, bearing no name.
"So far, at least," smiled Garrick to himself, "Madame's prophecy is fulfilled, though the thousand share part is—about like the two hundred per cent profit."
The last local stop of the express elevator was at the tenth floor, and Garrick suddenly decided to get off and call on Sanford Maynard.
Maynard was a lawyer, and by the same token typical of many of the profession: cold, passionless, at least on the surface. He did not appear to have much practice beyond that involved in managing his own affairs, for it was only a small, though well-equipped, office, which he occupied.
Garrick took the bull by the horns and introduced himself frankly as a recent acquaintance of Miss Maynard's who had been calling in the building, and seeing the name on the door, had taken the liberty of dropping in.
At the mention of his cousin's name, Sanford had shot a quizzical glance at Garrick, much as if wondering whether this young man might have designs on the Maynard family.
They chatted for a few minutes guardedly, as Garrick led gradually around to the topic he had in mind.
"Your cousin put a hypothetical question to me the other day," at last remarked Garrick.
"A hypothetical question?" repeated Sanford.
"Yes. She was wondering whether if her aunt made a new will it would be likely to stand in the courts."
Sanford cleared his throat. "Mrs. Maynard," he said slowly, "has consulted me about transactions frequently—but not lately. I'm just as well pleased. She doesn't take advice any more—from me."
"Why is that?" asked Garrick pointedly.
Maynard looked at him a moment as though in doubt whether to damn him for his insolence or answer him. Having gone so far, he evidently concluded to answer. "Why, as a matter of fact," he replied, "I have almost come to the conclusion that she is incompetent to make a new will. I suppose my cousin told you she has changed greatly lately. She has, and it worries us all. I have thought about it a great deal. And yet I don't think it would be advisable to apply to the courts for a commission to take charge of her affairs—not yet, at least. Personally, I hate scandal. You may be sure I shall never take the initiative. I think too much of the Maynard name for that. We Maynards must stick together though, stick together."
The lawyer changed the subject, a hint that he did not care to discuss family matters, even with a friend of his cousin, and Garrick accepted the hint. At any rate he had met Sanford and thought he had gained an insight into Mrs. Maynard's actions if not into her mind. He excused himself and this time actually started uptown again.
The Retreat was in a neighborhood where more than ordinarily prosperous boarding houses were springing up, as Garrick had already noticed, and since his visit downtown a plan had been slowly forming in the young detective's mind.
Late that afternoon Garrick rang the bell of the house next door to The Retreat. To his satisfaction, in answer to his inquiry, he found that there was a large back parlor on the first floor for rent. It was a great, wide room, the width of the house and corresponding to the inner room of Vesta Sears next door. He lost no time in renting and occupying it.
IT did not take Garrick long to move in. A trip down to
his office, the gathering together of some rather bulky
material and its delivery were all that were necessary.
Quietly, noiselessly as he could, that night, Garrick worked. He had set himself the curious task of boring a minute hole right through the solid wall, until there was just a faint point of light on the other side, telling that Vesta apparently never allowed the dim light in her mystic room to be wholly extinguished.
Carefully he shoved a narrow tube, perhaps a foot long, through the opening in the wall. It was only three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and in the dim light of Vesta's sanctum would pass unnoticed.
He bent down and placed his eye at the end of the tube, adjusting it. What had before been merely a dim point of light, now became a panorama of the whole room next door.
Garrick rose and regarded his work with satisfaction.
It was a detectascope, in one end of which was what is known as a fish-eye lens. The focus could be altered in range so that even faces of those in the room might be recognized. The instrument was fashioned somewhat after the cytoscope of the medical world, with which the human interior may be seen.
By using the fish-eye lens, not only could he see straight in front but on every side as well, the range of its vision being one hundred and eighty degrees, or half a circle. In a way, it illustrated the range of vision of some fishes, whose eyes see over half a circle. Ordinary lenses, because of their flatness, have a range of only a few degrees, the widest in use taking in only something like ninety-six degrees, or a little over a quarter of a circle, Garrick's detectascope enabled him to see anything that happened in the room next door.
He waited only long enough the next morning to determine just how well the detectascope worked: then after finding that it showed just what he wanted, he attached to the other end of it a large box-like arrangement.
From time to time Garrick watched through his new eavesdropping eye, but as nothing occurred, he began to think of Alma Maynard and to develop his plan of action.
She had told him that she lived with the Lyman Maynards on one of the squares further downtown which the uptown trend of business had left like a little residential eddy in the stream.
He had no difficulty in finding the house, a wide stone mansion built after the style of a generation ago. Inquiry for Alma Maynard brought the information that she would see him in a minute, and he was ushered into a study.
As he was waiting, he suddenly became aware that some one had entered the next room. By the voices he recognized that it must be Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Maynard, and through the open door he could see them, though they were evidently not aware that he was in the study waiting for Alma.
Lyman Maynard was a tall, thin, angular man. with a shock of silvery white hair; his wife a slight, nervous woman.
They were talking in low tones, and at first Garrick could not make out just what it was about, though from the earnestness with which the man spoke it was evident that Mr. Maynard was trying to smooth over some estrangement.
"Very well, Elizabeth," the man said at length, "you know Alma much better than I do. It has only been my purpose to look after her interests—the interests of both of them, and the future of the Maynard name and fortune."
Mrs. Maynard's reply was lost, although Garrick did manage to distinguish the name "Sanford."
It was not difficult to deduce that it was the dearest wish of the old man's heart to unite the fortunes in the marriage of Sanford and Alma.
Garrick wondered why Alma had said nothing about it. Had she her own ideas on the subject? He could scarcely blame her. The cold, calculating character of Sanford seemed anything but congenial to this warm-blooded, very human girl.
A sound at the door aroused him from his speculations. Mrs. Maynard had entered the study. At first she did not see him, and he noted quickly the abstracted, far-away expression in her eyes.
Garrick rose and introduced himself. She did not appear to be startled. In fact, she seemed to be in a state of serene calm. as though contemplating something far off.
He said merely that he was waiting to see Alma, and was casting about for something to talk about which would not tend to arouse suspicion, when the appearance of Miss Maynard herself relieved him of the necessity.
Her aunt seemed visibly to brighten as the girl linked an arm about her. A few gentle words passed between them, and Mrs. Maynard started reluctantly from the room, paused, returned and stroked the fair hair of her niece lovingly.
"Some day, Alma," she whispered in a low tone, "some day. when I am gone, I shall come back to see you the richest, the most sought-after lady in the land."
Then with a parting caress from Alma, she turned and left the room.
Garrick had been an interested but silent spectator of the little tableau, wondering what sidelight it threw on the case.
"Poor Aunt Elizabeth," Alma murmured as the door closed. "What do you think of her?"
"A very charming old lady," returned Garrick frankly. "—so simple and unaffected."
"Too much so," returned Alma quickly. "She is always thinking and planning for my future—instead of for her own present. And Uncle Lyman is the same way."
She paused and gazed out of the window pensively, as though not disposed to bare her inmost soul except for this glimpse.
"I have seen that Madame Sears," remarked Garrick in a low tone, not so much to change the subject as to lead it along.
Instantly her face changed.
"Oh!" she cried, "if my aunt would only stop thinking about my own fortune and let it take care of itself without any help from that woman, how happy we might all be. I almost know that that charlatan is playing on her in some way, through her love for me." She shuddered.
Garrick's thoughts traveled from the mystic to the little office in Wall Street and Tanner's boastful statement that if Mont Tresor Gold was good enough for the Maynards it was good enough for anybody. Was that the explanation? Were the fakers playing on the old lady's love and solicitude for the future of Alma?
"I want you to go to Madame Sears yourself," remarked Garrick.
"I?" she gasped. "Why, I could never—"
"But you must try," he urged. "Remember, you told me to call on you if I needed you, and I do need you, to get at the truth."
"She would know me, even though I never went to her."
"Never mind. I expect her to know you. I want you to tell her that you are in love."
Alma looked at him a moment, startled.
"Say you are in love with a young man," added Garrick hastily, "who is handsome, athletic—red-blooded—anything—you know the type I mean."
"Oh, you mean it is just a story," she replied, much relieved.
"Yes, as we detectives say, a 'plant.'"
There was no mistaking her manner; the girl showed plainly that she could not take kindly to Lyman Maynard's plan for her future.
"Very well," she agreed, as Garrick excused himself. "I shall go to her and do as you say."
"Good," he encouraged. "You are a trump."
The rest of the morning, he occupied in hiring temporarily the vacant office he had observed next to the Mont Tresor Gold Mining Company. There, also, through the office wall, although it was much more difficult, he bored a hole and inserted another detectascope, with a large box at the end of it, precisely similar to that which he had placed in the room next to The Retreat.
Garrick divided his time during the rest of the day between the two places, taking care not to be observed going in and out.
That evening, when sufficient time had passed for Alma to make her visit. Garrick paid a second call on Madame Sears.
She greeted him much more cordially this time. Evidently Tanner had already told her of his prompt visit, although her first question was. "Have you done what I saw you doing in the crystal?"
"Yes," he replied eagerly. "And it is wonderful, marvelous. I'm going to buy the stock just as soon as I can get the cash. But it is about another matter I have called on you, this time."
He paused, to let her know how great was his confidence in her. then resumed, slowly. "I'm lonely."
"You are in love, then?" she queried, searching his face intently, as she led the way into the inner room.
"Hardly," laughed Garrick. "That is the trouble. I've never met the kind of girl I'd like to meet."
"What must she be like?" asked the medium.
"Oh—pretty—intellectual, tall, well dressed," he enumerated, adding, "and I like deep blue eyes."
Madame Sears gazed long and deeply into the crystal.
"I see the young lady whom you would love," she began at length in a soft voice. "She would love you, too. I see a love affair surrounding both of you."
She continued to gaze into the limpid depths from which she drew her inspiration. "But not yet will she be yours." she went on. "She is under the evil influence of another man—"
Garrick waited anxiously. What would she say?
"An old man." added the medium. "But it can all be arranged with care. For fifty dollars I will go into a trance. I will overcome this evil influence. But it will take time. She is precisely such a girl as you describe."
Garrick suppressed a smile. It was his own client!
Much as he admired Alma Maynard. he would scarcely have conducted a courtship through a professional "server" or crystal-gazer. He thanked her profusely and promised to return and let her use her wonderful power in overcoming the evil influence—which he could guess was that of old Mr. Maynard.
He had expected to find Miss Maynard angry at Madame Sears, but when he called on Alma again the next day, she was merely amused.
"She already had an affinity picked out for me," laughed Alma merrily in telling about it. "I met him there."
"Indeed?" remarked Garrick, at first with mingled feelings, for although he was not a suitor, still he was human enough not to want to be laughed at as such. Her last remark aroused his curiosity. "Who was he?" he asked.
"A Mr. Tanner," she replied. "Have you met him? He is a broker or something or other downtown. Aunt Elizabeth knows him."
Garrick nodded. He was trying to piece the mystery together and found that somehow the parts did not fit into each other yet.
THE day slipped by, like others an anxious day for Alma.
Her visit to Madame Sears had not reassured her concerning
her aunt. Instead, it had further alarmed her, for she did
not like the looks of the Mr. Tanner.
Garrick had apparently disappeared, although he was in fact busy with his detectascope both at the boarding house and in the office he had hired downtown.
He bad arranged his quarters at the boarding house to look as much as possible like a séance room of a fortune-teller and had prepared to place in the front window a little gilt-lettered glass sign, reading. "Prof. Bell. Psychic Palmist."
It was along toward eight when be found at last that he was ready to act, and he lost no time in calling up Alma Maynard.
"I've established myself as a psychic at West Forty-fifth Street," he observed over the telephone.
"What?" she answered quickly. "Next to Madame Sears?"
"Yes," he laughed back. "An opposition. You will find me there to-night as 'Professor Bell, Psychic Palmist.' I wonder if you and Sanford couldn't arrange to call on me? I shall have to trust to you to think up the excuse."
It proved easier than she had expected when she told Garrick that she would try, for, by a sort of inspiration, she managed to appeal to Sanford's skepticism by asking him to see if he could expose this new psychic of whom she had just heard.
Alma greeted the "Professor" in a manner which showed that she had the instincts of an actress. Sanford, on the other hand, as soon as he caught sight of Garrick and recognized him, turned superciliously to his cousin and remarked. "I thought you didn't believe in this sort of thing, Alma."
"Oh," she replied, "that's just it. I don't. But—this is so different."
Garrick flashed his approbation at the impromptu remark and busied himself about a cabinet on top of which was a huge crystal ball. Beneath, in the cabinet itself, he had placed a curious arrangement, which, however, was not visible to an outsider.
He lowered the lights in the room, talking in an even, unhurried tone as he did so.
Sanford watched him furtively, casting a glance now and then at Alma. Garrick saw it, though he did not appear to be watching. He felt instinctively that if Sanford really had been in love with his pretty cousin there would have been excellent material for a fight.
"Suppose we cut out the mummery, and get down to business," remarked Sanford at length, twisting impatiently in his chair.
"Look!" exclaimed Garrick, suddenly, ignoring the remark.
His tone startled them, but no more than what he directed their attention toward. There, in the depths of the magic crystal ball, broke forth a dim. shimmering light, becoming brighter and brighter, making the huge crystal seem almost a thing of life.
They started forward involuntarily and gazed down, as Garrick directed. Alma gave a faint scream of surprise. Suddenly a picture, faint, indistinct, seemed to form in the very heart of the transparent rock. She bent closer, scarcely breathing.
There floated in the crystal a figure—it was no other than Madame Sears herself. It was indistinct, yet plain enough for them to recognize what was going on. She advanced toward them, but really toward what was evidently a door.
A man entered the room with her. There they stood, close together, apparently talking earnestly.
There was something familiar about him, yet he did not turn his face and without seeing his face the picture was too indistinct to recognize him. Still, even his back seemed indefinably familiar to Alma as she strained her eyes to see.
The couple talked, and it was evident that they were on very good terms indeed. Now and then the medium would gaze up into his face, with that same rapt attention which she bestowed upon the crystal. But the man was not of crystal. Suddenly he bent over and kissed her. She flung her arms about him in a wild embrace....
The light suddenly disappeared from the crystal. Alma could not help feeling that somehow Garrick had cut the picture short himself. What did it mean? What sort of new scientific necromancy was this? What sort of situation was it disclosing?
It was weird, as Garrick had staged it. Both his visitors could see, not merely Garrick himself, the alleged server, but all of them. For the first time Sanford seemed impressed.
"I have always thought the visions of the crystal-gazer perhaps real enough," he muttered, "but I thought it was merely seeing ideas visualized which were already in the mind. The least you can say of this is that it is telepathy—or—fraud."
Before Alma could say a word. Garrick had flashed the lights of the séance room up and had drawn a legal paper from his pocket. Quickly he skimmed over its contents:
Said Madame Vesta Sears received from deponent the sum of twenty-five dollars, then stated that she saw a love affair surrounding deponent; that there was a young lady who would love deponent but was undecided because of the evil influence of another man, an old man; that for fifty dollars she would go into a trance and cause this young lady to fall in love with deponent by the aid of metaphysics. Wherefore deponent prays that legal process may he issued for the apprehension of said Madame Vesta Sears, and that she be dealt with according to law.
As he finished reading, Garrick had taken a step toward the door. From nowhere, seemed to spring two plainclothes men. In the glare of the light, Garrick and his visitors could see that one of them was holding Stuart Tanner securely by the wrist.
Not a word was said, as Garrick ran off his little drama: Tanner himself gazed sullenly from one to the other.
"Wh-what does it all mean?" cried Alma.
Garrick merely pressed a warrant into the hand of the other officer whom he had had waiting outside, and a moment later the man had mounted the steps next door, had forced himself past the turbaned attendant and into Madame Sears' holy of holies.
Outside on the street, quicker than it can be told, a crowd had collected, a typical New York crowd, attracted now by cries of "A raid! A raid!"
Garrick had evidently laid his plans carefully to end the whole affair like the track of a whip. Everything was running as smoothly as if it had been a picture in one of the magic crystals.
A moment later, the raider appeared from the next house with Madame Sears herself, indignant and protesting.
As she was hurried into the rooms of the new rival, "Prof. Bell," she shot a glance of scorn at Garrick. Then with a little cry of surprise she caught sight of Sanford and Alma and Tanner.
Before she could recover, Garrick stepped forward.
"There's a syndicate of you fakers," he cried, "working in this city. But you. Madame Sears," he added, "you supply only one link in the chain I have forged."
He walked over and laid his hand on the crystal hall.
"Here," he went on, "here, I have the evidence."
With a turn of his hand he switched out the lights so that the room was in almost total darkness.
Again a light seemed to break through the crystal on the cabinet and the picture seemed to begin where it had left off before he had interrupted it by the raid.
As all crowded around, they could see the medium and her visitor, whose face was concealed, holding each other in a long, passionate embrace.
It was just for a moment: then the wonderful crystal became suddenly black and blank as before.
"It's a fake—it's a lie!" cried a woman's voice, tensely. All turned. It was Vesta Sears, facing Garrick.
Quickly he lifted up the heavy crystal ball. There, beneath, set into the cabinet itself, was a peculiar lens. He opened the cabinet and disclosed a miniature moving-picture machine which projected a small picture right through the crystal itself.
Then, without a word, Garrick took a step toward the party wall that separated them from The Retreat. He bent over and drew out the little twelve-inch tube that he had inserted.
"Look through that," he demanded, handing it to Vesta Sears.
"What is it?" asked Alma, leaning over and touching his arm.
"A detectascope," he said quietly. "I have seen much through it, but modern science tells us not to trust our eyes too far, as witnesses. I determined to make certain that what I saw could not be denied. I have used the detectascope to take moving pictures with a new form of motion-picture camera. In this other machine, I have shown you one of the pictures which I took. Here is another—taken in another place where I repeated what I did here."
Garrick replaced the crystal in its position over the projecting lens; the lights winked down: and suddenly at the inconspicuous pressure of his finger the light broke forth in the crystal depths again,
The scene had shifted. All now crowded about the cabinet, gazing down entranced.
There was Tanner's office, downtown. There sat Tanner himself at his desk.
Suddenly a man entered. It was the figure already familiar which had appeared in the crystal before.
On sped the picture.
They were evidently engaged in going over something, together, for at the conclusion of the transaction, Tanner rose, went to a safe, and handed over to the man a huge roll of bills.
"Some one," exclaimed Garrick, breaking the tense silence, "some one was planning to squeeze the last cent from Mrs. Maynard. This represents the last payment she has made for worthless stock in the Mont Tresor Mine."
Suddenly the man in the crystal turned his face toward the little audience, and it was clear.
Alma drew back with a scream.
"Sanford!" exclaimed she.
At the same time Garrick caught an upraised hand. Sanford Maynard had advanced with a heavy metal ornament which he had seized from the mantelpiece as if to smash the crystal.
"More than that," ground out the young detective, "that person, so cold to outward appearances, had one great all-consuming passion. The last cent wrung from Mrs. Maynard, he planned to marry off Alma Maynard as best he could, while he gratified his infatuation for Vesta Sears. In the scheme of fleecing the old lady, Stuart Tanner was only the tool of others. Vesta Sears was not alone. This scientific server proves it. You—Sanford Maynard—you were the very brains of this clairvoyant trust!"
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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