Argosy, Vol. 123, No. 1 — page 135: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SERAPION. something bad was coming. I couldn’t say why. I just had that impression. I did not see either James or Mr. Berquist assume a threatening attitude—”’ Released at last, she readjusted her pur- ple screen with cold self-possession, and returned to her seat. It was Sabina Cassel’s next turn. Save in appearance, Alicia had not after all come up to public anticipations. In Sabina, however, the hydra was sure of a real treat in store. Judge Ballington rapped for order. Sa- bina took her oath with a scowl. Every line of her face expressed resentment. But she was intelligent. To Clemens’s questions, she gave grim, bald replies that offered as little grip as possible to public imagination. Yes, on the evening in question she had been standing concealed behind the black curtains of ‘‘ Miss ’Licia’s”’ cabinet, or “box,” as Sabina called. it. No, “ Marse James ” did not know she was there. Miss ’Licia and she had “ fixed it up” so that one could enter the box from the back. Marse James had the box built with a solid wooden back, like a wardrobe. It stayed that way—for a while. “Then Marse James he done got on- satisfied!—Yas, de sperits did wuhk in de box an’ come out ob it, too; but Marse James, he ain’t suited yit. He want dem sperits shud wuhk all de time! He neber gib mah poh chile no res’!” And so Alicia, who, according to Sabina, could sometimes but not always command her “‘ sperits,” devised a means to satiate Moore’s scientific craving for results. While he was absent in another city, the two conspirators brought in a carpenter. They had the cabinet removed and a door- way cut through the plastered wall into a large closet in the next room. By taking off the cabinet’s solid back and hinging it on again, it would just open neatly into the aperture cut to fit it. Alicia kept plenty of gowns hung over the opening in the closet beyond. Returning, Moore found his solid-backed cabinet apparently as before. From that time, however, the ‘ sperits”’ were more willing to oblige than formerly. 125 “Ab uno disce omnes,” is invariably ap- plied to the medium or clairvoyant caught in fraud, though translated: ‘“ From all fraud, infer all deceit.” The world laughed over the “ spiritual- istic fake again exposed!” I did not laugh. Let it be that the hand which Roberta and I had seen was Sabina’s gnarled black paw, and that my impression of its unsub- Stantiality was a self-delusion. Let those strange little twirling flames that had arisen pass as the peculiar “ fireworks’ I had tried to believe them. Let even the inci- dent of the broken lamp have been a feat of Sabina’s—though how her large, clumsy figure could have stolen out past the table and into the room unheard was a puzzle— and the masculine voice of “ Horace,” a wonderful ventriloquism. Grant all these as deceptions. There had come that to me through Alicia’s un- willing agency which had given me a ter- rible faith in her, that no proof of occa- sional fraud could dispel. Clemens’s interrogations touched lightly on the object of the door in the cabinet’s supposedly solid back, only serving to es- tablish the fact that it was impossible for his witness to have been practically in the library unknown to all the room’s other occupants save, probably, Alicia. Then he asked Sabina’s story of that night in her own words. She began it grimly: ‘Waal, Ah wuz in behin’ de cuhtins dat hangs in front ob Miss ’Licia’s box. Dem cuhtins is moderate thin. Ah cudn’ see all dey is in de room, but Ah suttinly cud see all dat pass in front ob de lamp— Yass, dat whut yoh got in yoh hand am one ob dem cuhtins.”’ = Here Clemens checked her, while the “cuhtin,” Exhibit B in the prosecution’s evidence, was passed from hand to hand through the jury-box. Each juryman mo- mentarily draped himself in mourning while he assured himself that it was thin enough to be seen through. Then with solemn nods Exhibit B was restored to the district attorney. Sabina continued. ‘““Dese yeah gemmen, Mistah Buhquis’ and Mistah Bahbour, dey come in, and right away de argifyin’ stahted. Ah kain’t comicoooks C©