THROUGH THE WALL-PAPER "You've got to do it!" said Rosalie Le Grange; "no half-way business. I could show better reasons than I'm tellin'." Blake paused in his slow walk beside her. "What reasons?" he asked. "Now listen to the man!" exclaimed Rosalie. "And ain't it man for you! Right off, first meeting, I told you enough to put me in jail and now you won't trust me!" Blake seemed to see the logic of what she said. "I have cause to trust you," he said, "and I hope you don't think that I am afraid of the personal danger. It's just that you're asking me to do something which--will, which people like me don't do." "So anxious to be a gentleman that you forgit to be a man!" remarked Rosalie with asperity. "Now you listen to me. I've told you that she's held two materializing seances for Robert H. Norcross, haven't I? I've told you it is crooked materialization--even if there was such a thing as real cabinet spooks, which there ain't--because I found the ceiling trap an' the apparatus long ago. And if Mrs. Markham is playin' fake materializing with old Norcross as a dope, what does it come to? Obtainin' money, an' big money, under false pretenses! That's enough to put her behind the bars. So what risk do you take even if you are caught? She'll be more anxious than you to keep it away from the papers and the police. And Norcross! He'll break his collar-bone to shut it up!" Half persuaded, he clutched at his sense of honor. "But it's a sneaking trick--Annette would call it that." "Yes, an' ain't it a sneakin' trick to hire a housekeeper to be a spy?" Rosalie hurled back. "Seems to me you draw a fine line between doin' your own dirty work an' havin' it done!" At this plain statement of the case, Blake smiled for the first time that morning. "I suppose you're right," he said. "A good officer never sends a man where he wouldn't go himself. I'm rather sorry I started now." The dominant thought in all the complex machinery of Rosalie's mind was: "And you'll be sorrier before this night's over, boy." But her voice said: "I knew you'd see it that way. Now listen and git this carefully: You're to wear a big ulster and old hat and soft-soled shoes--don't forget that. You're to come to the back door at a quarter to nine--exactly. Us servants receive our callers at the back door. Norcross will be in the parlor at half past, Annette will be in her room, the other help will be out, Ellen and all. Mrs. Markham takes no chances--not even with that fool girl--when she's got Norcross. She's given Ellen theater tickets. That's how careful she is about little things. You can see how clear the coast will be. I'm goin' to bring you straight to my room like a visitor. You walk soft!" "But how about that electric bell?" he asked. "I disconnected it this morning at the trap with my manicure scissors an' a hairpin," replied Rosalie, triumphantly. So, at sixteen minutes to nine, Dr. Blake, feeling a cross between a detective and a burglar, stole through the alley which backed the Markham residence, crossed the area, knocked softly at the kitchen door. It opened cautiously and then suddenly to show the kitchen, lighted with one dim lamp, and the ample form of Rosalie. With a finger on her lips, she closed the door behind him. His heart beat fast, less with a sense of impending adventure than with the thought, which struck him as he mounted the servants' staircase, that he was divided but by thin walls from the object of all these strivings and diplomacies--that for the second time in his life he was under her home roof with Annette. It was a firm, old house. Their footsteps made not the slightest creak on the thick-carpeted stairs. At the door of her room, Rosalie stopped and put her mouth to his ear. "Step careful inside," she said, "my floor is bare." He stood now in the neat, low-ceiled housekeeper's parlor. Rosalie turned up the gas, and indicated by a gesture that he was to stand still. Elaborately, she closed the registers, plugged the keyhole with her key, and set two chairs beside him. "Now sit down," she whispered. "They can't hear us talkin', though we'd better whisper for safety, but two sets of footsteps might sound suspicious. The halls are carpeted like a padded cell, which ought to have put me wise in the beginning." "Are you sure Annette's abed?" he asked anxiously. Rosalie threw him a swift glance, as of suspicion. "Sure," she said--"saw her go. Now before I let you out, I want to git one promise from you. Whatever happens, you leave this house quiet,--as quiet as you can. You've got me to guard in this as well as yourself--you can't leave me alone with trouble." "I'll promise that," he said. "Won't you tell me what I'm going to see?" Rosalie, under pretense of consulting her watch, looked away. "You'll know in ten minutes," she said. "Now don't bother me with any questions. I've got directions for you. You're coming with me to the floor below. I'll let you into a hall closet. It was built into a--into a room, and the back of it is only wood. There's an old gas connection, which they papered over, through that wood. Yesterday I punched through the paper and hung a picture over the hole. This afternoon, I took that picture down. To-morrow morning, the picture goes back. But now, there's a peephole into the room." Dr. Blake bristled. "Peep through a hole!" he said. "Now ain't that just like a fashionable bringin-up," said Rosalie, almost raising her voice. "Things a gentleman can do an' things he can't do! You're tryin' to bust a crook, an' you remember what your French nurse told you about the etiquette of keyholes!" "You're my master at argument, Mme. Le Grange," responded Blake. "Go ahead." "And you promise to leave quiet?" "I promise." "There's one place I can trust your bringin'-up, I guess. When you're inside, feel about till you find a hassock. Stand on it; 't will bring your eyes up to the hole. Stay there until I knock for you to come out--let's be goin'." "But what am I to do--why am I here if I am to do nothing?" "You're to look an' see an' remember what you see--that's all for to-night." At the door, she looked him full in the eyes again: "Remember, you've promised." "I remember." The dim light of a low gas jet illuminated the upper hall. From below came the faintest murmur of voices. Rosalie led to the hall of the second floor, turned toward the back of the house, opened a door and motioned. He stepped inside; the door closed without noise. He was in black darkness. His foot found the hassock; he mounted it and adjusted his eye. He was looking into some kind of a living-room or boudoir. On the extreme left of his range of vision he could see a set of dark portières; directly before him was a foolish little white desk, over which burned a gas jet, turned low. That, apparently, was the only illumination in the room. For the rest, he could only see a wall decorated with the tiny frivolities of a boudoir, two chairs, a sewing table. He watched until--his eyes, grown accustomed to the dim light--he discerned every detail. From far below, he heard the subdued hum of a conversation, and made out at length, in the rise and fall of voices, that a man and a woman were speaking. Then even that sound ceased; over the house lay a stillness so heavy that he feared his own breathing. Gradually, he was aware that someone was playing a piano. It began so gently that he doubted, at first, whether it was not a far echo from one of the houses to right or left. But it increased in volume until he located it definitely in the rooms below. The air, unrecognized at first, called up a memory of old-fashioned parlors and of his grandmother. He found himself struggling for words to fit the tune; and suddenly they sprang into his mind--"Wild roamed an Indian maid, bright Alfaretta." Thrice over the unseen musician played the air, and let it die with a last, lingering chord. Suddenly his heart gave a great leap. For the first time, something was happening in the room before him. It came first as a slight, padded thump, like bare feet striking the floor. He saw that the portières to left of his range of vision were undulating. They parted--and a pillar of white stood for a moment before them. The thing resolved itself into a human figure, swathed, draped in white, the face concealed by a white veil which fell straight from the head. Now the white figure, with a noiseless, gliding motion, was crossing the room toward the white desk. It stopped, lifted a hand which crept toward the gaslight. With this motion, the veil fell away from the face. The gaslight shone upon it; he could see it in full profile. It was Annette. In the space of his long gasp, her hand touched the gas jet. It went out; the room faded into absolute darkness. And the vision which stood out from the black background made him sway and clutch at the garments in the closet. For her robes radiated dull light, like a coal seen behind ashes. It was as though she were about to burst into flame. On her head gleamed a dull star; from it, the radiance of her robe fell away toward her feet in lesser light, like the tail-streamer of a comet. All emotion of despair, disillusion, rage, were expressed for a moment within him by an emotion of supernatural awe which sent the tremors running from his face to his spine, and his spine to his feet. She stood a perfect phantom of the night, like Annette called back from the dead. The pillar of dull light was moving now. She had stooped; he heard a faint creak, he imagined that he felt new air. Suddenly, too, a voice which had been droning far away became audible. And now the pillar of light was sinking, sinking through the floor. The feet were gone, the torso; the star of light was level with the floor, was gone. He was looking into darkness. Mrs. Markham's controlled, vibrant voice rose clearly from below--he caught every word: "Come, Helen; be strong. He loves you. His love calls you!" Silence for a quarter of a minute; then a swish as of garments agitated by some swift motion; then Annette's well-remembered contralto voice of a boy--Annette's voice, which had spoken such things to him-- "Robert, dearest, I have come again. Robert, I keep for you out here the little ring. Robert, we will be happy!" And the voice of a man, sobbing and breaking between the exclamatives: "My little Lallie--Dear Helen--how long I've waited--sweetheart--how many years!" And the voice of Annette. "Only a few more years to wait, dearest--and now that you have faith, I can come to you sometimes--but, oh, dearest, I foresee a danger--a great danger!" Ten minutes later, Rosalie tiptoed from the library from which she had observed the seance to the last detail of method, and made her way to the closet wherein she had shut Dr. Blake. She opened the door with all precaution, fumbled, found nothing, whispered. No one answered. At last she stepped within, plugged the keyhole with her key, and lit a match. The closet was empty. Rosalie crept upstairs to her own room. When she lit the gas, she was crying softly and--as of old habit under emotional stress--talking to herself under her breath. "I had to do it," she whispered. "He'd believe nothin' but his eyes!" She sat down then, and surveyed her belongings. "The job's over. What whelps it makes people--just to touch this business!"