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shock, and awaken his higher senses. It opens the
sleeping eye of the mind."
"I'm suspectible," said Fisher, either with simplicity
or with a baffling irony. "Why not open my mind's
eye for me? My friend Harold March here will tell
you I sometimes see things, even in the dark."
"Nobody sees anything except in the dark," said
the magician.
Heavy clouds of sunset were closing round the
wooden hut, enormous clouds, of which only the
corners* could be seen in the little window, like
purple horns and tails, almost as if some huge
monsters were prowling round the place. But the
purple was already deepening to dark gray; it would
soon be night.
"Do not light the lamp," said the magus with quiet
authority, arresting a movement in that direction. "I
told you before that things happen only in the dark."
How such a topsy-turvy scene ever came to be
tolerated in the colonel's office, of all places, was
afterward a puzzle in the memory of many, including
the colonel. They recalled it like a sort of nightmare,
like something they could not control. Perhaps there
was really a magnetism about the mesmerist;
perhaps there was even more magnetism about the man mesmerized.
Anyhow, the man was being mesmerized, for Horne
Fisher had collapsed into a chair with his long limbs
loose and sprawling and his eyes staring at vacancy;
and the other man was mesmerizing him, making
sweeping movements with his darkly draped arms as
if with black wings. The colonel had passed the point
of explosion, and he dimly realized that eccentric
aristocrats are allowed their fling. He comforted
himself with the knowledge that he had already sent
for the police, who would break up any such
masquerade, and with lighting a cigar, the red end of
which, in the gathering darkness, glowed with protest.
"Yes, I see pockets," the man in the trance was
saying. "I see many pockets, but they are all empty.
No; I see one pocket that is not empty."
There was a faint stir in the stillness, and the
magician said, "Can you see what is in the pocket?"
"Yes," answered the other; "there are two bright
things. I think they are two bits of steel. One of the
pieces of steel is bent or crooked."
"Have they been used in the removal of the relic
from downstairs?"
"Yes."
There was another pause and the inquirer added,
"Do you see anything of the relic itself?"
"I see something shining on the floor, like the
shadow or the ghost of it. It is over there in the
corner beyond the desk."
There was a movement of men turning and then a
sudden stillness, as of their stiffening, for over in the
corner on the wooden floor there was really a round
spot of pale light. It was the only spot of light in the
room. The cigar had gone out.
"It points the way," came the voice of the oracle.
"The spirits are pointing the way to penitence, and
urging the thief to restitution. I can see nothing
more." His voice trailed off into a silence that lasted
solidly for many minutes, like the long silence below
when the theft had been committed. Then it was
broken by the ring of metal on the floor, and the
sound of something spinning and falling like a tossed
halfpenny.
"Light the lamp!" cried Fisher in a loud and even
jovial voice, leaping to his feet with far less languor
than usual. "I must be going now, but I should like to
see it before I go. Why, I came on purpose to see it."
The lamp was lit, and he did see it, for St. Paul's
Penny was lying on the floor at his feet.
"Oh, as for that," explained Fisher, when he was
entertaining March and Twyford at lunch about a
month later, "I merely wanted to play with the
magician at his own game."
"I thought you meant to catch him in his own trap,"
said Twyford. "I can't make head or tail of anything
yet, but to my mind he was always the suspect. I
don't think he was necessarily a thief in the vulgar
sense. The police always seem to think that silver is
stolen for the sake of silver, but a thing like that might
well be stolen out of some religious mania. A
runaway monk turned mystic might well want it for
some mystical purpose."
"No," replied Fisher, "the runaway monk is not a
thief. At any rate he is not the thief. And he's not
altogether a liar, either. He said one true thing at
least that night."
"And what was that?" inquired March.
"He said it was all magnetism. As a matter of fact,
it was done by means of a magnet." Then, seeing
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