Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 10, No. 48, November 1947

The Tangible Illusion by C. Daly King

Mary threw her golf bag into the rumble of the roadster. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Jerry. Whatever is the matter with Valerie? She looks like a perfect hag.”

“Is that so?” I slipped the clutch into second and jerked the car brutally around the curve beside the clubhouse. Mary’s my sister.

When the jerks stopped and we straightened out on the drive at about forty-five, she managed to sit up. “You’re such a mooing calf about Val you can’t see how terribly she looks. What is wrong with her, anyhow?”

“I don’t know.”

“And just after she’s got into that darling house. How long has she been there? A couple of months, isn’t it? Probably,” Mary considered, “it’s simply your hanging around so much. Your face at the window twice a day, darling, would give any girl jitters.”

For once in her life, though, Mary was right. Something was desperately wrong with Valerie and I couldn’t find out what it was. She wouldn’t tell me, and if I pressed the question, she got so upset that I had to stop.

Valerie Mopish had come to Norrisville with her brother five years ago when she was eighteen. Although they were orphans and nobody knew them, they were so pleasant, especially Valerie, that they made friends everywhere; within a year they were in all the clubs and on intimate terms with the crowd to which Mary and I belonged. Why she liked me, heaven only knows, but she did, from the start. Why I liked her, is easy; she is the loveliest-looking girl that ever got into a one-piece bathing suit. She has golden-blonde hair and violet eyes — violet, mind you — and she’s sweet and sort of fragrant; and she always wears high-heeled shoes and her ankles give you a feeling as if you were tied to a roller coaster.

After lunch I hung around for an interminable hour until I thought it would be all right to walk over and see Val. I came out of the woods and across the field just as she stepped onto the terrace that runs along one side of her new house. I vaulted over the low, stone railing and said, “ ’lo, Val. Marry me?”

She looked pale and there certainly were little circles under her eyes, but she smiled. “Sorry.” And then the smile went out like a light, leaving just trouble. “Oh, Jerry, go away and forget about me. I... I... I can’t.”

We were pretty close together when she began; when she ended, we were a good deal closer. As my arms went around her, she sort of collapsed and lay back in them. Then she raised her face and kissed me.

“Jerry, let me go... Please.”

I felt foolish, standing there all alone, so I sat down on the railing. Valerie had taken one of the big, wicker chairs and was patting at her hair.

“I called up Dr. Beckenforth yesterday and he’s coming out to see me this afternoon; any minute now.”

“Huh? Who’s he?”

“He’s the man who treated me when I had the nervous breakdown, before we moved to Norrisville. He’s a psychiatrist.”

“A who?”

“A whoozie-doctor, I suppose you’d call him. He got me over a lot of complexes and things once... I know you care for me, Jerry, and I’m going to tell you about this. I think I ought to... Before John and I moved out to Norrisville, I had what they call a nervous breakdown. You know that, but you don’t know how bad it was. I felt terribly and I got morbid and it went on and on and got worse instead of better. Finally I began to hear things—”

“Hear things?”

“Things that weren’t there. Oh, Jerry, it was awful. I knew I was going crazy and there wasn’t anything I could do about it... Then, finally, I had Dr. Beckenforth and he showed me how these hallucinations came out of my unconscious mind, and after about six months or so, he helped me to get rid of them. One of the things I heard was someone following me; he showed me why I heard that — because I wanted to — and that went away first. Bye and bye all the other horrors went, too, and I was cured. I never thought another thing about it or worried at all until just recently.”

“Why worry now?”

She said simply, “I’ve got ’em again.”

“Oh come on, Val. If—”

“No,” she hurried on, “there’s no use saying it isn’t so when it is. About a week after I moved in here, the day after John sailed in fact, I began to get frightened of nothing; that’s the way it started before. And it’s got worse and worse. And I’m so tired of trying to hide it and not tell anyone, and they all see it anyhow. I know there’s nothing really to be afraid of, but I am. And now, now I’ve begun to hear the footsteps again.”

A reasonable explanation occurred to me. “Of course you get nervous all alone here,” I offered, “no one within a mile of you at night. Why don’t you have Annie stay with you instead of going back to the big house every night? Or better yet, go back yourself for a while.”

“I can’t do that. I can’t run away from it, or I’d be licked for the rest of my life. Don’t you understand, Jerry? I’m not afraid of tramps prowling around or anything like that. It’s just because I know there’s no one here that it’s so awful. When someone follows me up the stairs and there just isn’t anyone there and I can hear him as plainly as I hear you now, I get so that I nearly scream. And then there are other things, too. It hasn’t anything to do with living here alone; it would happen to me anywhere.”

“Then it’s only imagination,” I remarked inadequately. “You’ll be O.K. again in a jiffy. If you’d only marry me, I’ll bet you’d never think of this stuff again. We’d go for a swell, long trip and—”

“I told you this, Jerry, so you’d know why I can’t marry you. I can’t get married until I’m absolutely sure there isn’t something funny about me. And I don’t see how I can be sure; maybe I’ll never be sure...”

I got up and crossed over to her chair. I said, “Listen, lady. Sooner or later you’re going to marry me. Sooner is best, but later is a lot better than never. I don’t care if you’re goofy as a loon, which obviously you’re not.” I pushed her over into a corner of the big chair and perched on the edge...

When I left, I was sure that Valerie, in spite of her obstinacy, was feeling a lot better.

Perhaps I should explain about Val’s two houses. When she and John Mopish had come to Norrisville originally, they had picked up a place outside the town at a bargain price. It comprised roughly fifty acres of ground, mostly wooded, although there were some farm fields now disused, on which stood an old-fashioned residence, a cut above a farm house but far from modern. It wasn’t exactly what they wanted but it was close enough and they moved in with two servants, a cook and a maid. No attempt was made to cultivate the farm.

Valerie, however, was very fond of modern things, appliances and whatnot, and the old house never suited her. So when building costs took a tumble, she decided to put up just the sort of house she had always dreamed of, on a remote part of the land. In a straight line, of course, it was no more than a quarter of a mile away from the former house but, due to the configuration of the ground and the woods that covered it, the actual journey came almost to a mile. She and her brother had mulled over the project for a year before the building was undertaken.

John, being an architect, had naturally drawn the plans and supervised the construction. Everything about it was ultra-modern, but since John was really talented in his profession, it escaped being ridiculous and was a perfect example of what can actually be put into a house under modern conditions. It had flues for air conditioning, of course, in conjunction with its gas furnace; it had the usual electric refrigeration, and more unusual gadgets such as no-shadow lighting in the bathrooms and disappearing wallbeds on the small sleeping porch outside Val’s own room. The doors of the little garage underneath opened automatically when you drove up to it and closed again after you were inside. Both inside and outside the style was modernistic, as were the entire furnishings.

Not only to save construction costs but because she wanted it only for herself, the house was very small. Beyond the terrace that stretched across the front was the big, sunken living-room (radio and electric victrola built into the walls and a concealed modernistic bar, disclosed by a sliding section of panels) where Val could give a reasonable party when she wanted to. Besides this room there were on the first floor only an entrance hallway, with closets and a dressing-room and lavatory off it, and the small but complete kitchen. Between the living-room and the hallway a broad staircase led upward, its upper half spiralled.

The second floor had two comfortable bedrooms, each with a bath, and one smaller room that could be used as a study or a tiny library or for sports equipment or whatever. And that was all there was, with the exception of the garage and the cellar for furnace and storage space. Annie came over in the daytime to prepare the meals and attend to the cleaning, but otherwise, Val lived alone.

Nothing more happened for the next few weeks. Valerie seemed to be much the same — and I saw quite a bit of her. Then, late one afternoon I walked over to the new house for cocktails.

I had already come around the corner of the house and had gone perhaps ten feet along the terrace, before I stopped whistling in the middle of a bar and stood still with my mouth part way open. On the wicker lounge Mary sat with her arms around Valerie and Valerie was sobbing violently; not pretty sobbing but great, wrenching sobs that seemed to come from way down inside of her somewhere.

I stood there for quite a long while, and then I said, “Huh?”

Mary looked up. “Oh, you’re here, are you?”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know what’s the matter. She won’t tell me... Shut up and go away.”

Valerie had stopped sobbing and started gasping. “D-don’t make Jerry go. He knows ab-about it.”

They were both busy now with powder and stuff out of Mary’s vanity case.

“It was terrible last night,” Valerie said in a low voice. “It was simply awful. And now tonight’s almost here. When the afternoon began going and the sun started to set, I just — I guess I’m no good.”

“What was terrible last night?” Mary demanded.

“None of your business,” I told her. “And if you open that trap of yours about this—”

Valerie said, “Jerry!” and Mary looked as if she were going to get mad, then decided not to. She smiled, “God will probably forgive you; and I certainly realize you don’t know what you’re doing. So far I haven’t anything to open, in your elegant phrase, my trap about.”

“You won’t have, either... Val, you’ve got to come and spend the night with us.”

“I can’t run away from it, Jerry.”

“See here,” Mary announced in her competent voice, “I don’t care what it’s about if you don’t want to tell me. But I’ll stay here with Val tonight, if she wants me.”

But Valerie shook her head. “It’s sweet of you, Mary; you’re swell to me. But I can’t let you. Honestly.”

The thing was impossible. I started to walk up and down. I growled for a while and then I spoke. “It’s no go. You won’t come with us and won’t let Mary stay here. All right; then I’ll stay. I’m here and I’m staying here.”

It was Annie’s day off and Val and I got our own supper in the little kitchen. She continued to apologize for her outbreak and to urge me to go home, but underneath it I sensed her nervousness increasing as the daylight faded.

After supper we had coffee out on the terrace, while the dusk deepened and a glorious moon, verging toward the full, came up above the eastern trees. We also had liqueurs. The evening was balmy with late Spring and I stretched back in my chair, enjoying myself thoroughly.

The time went before I knew it; it was nearly twelve o’clock when Val ground out a cigarette and stood up. She had been perfectly calm all evening, but now I could almost feel a wave of nervousness sweep across from where she stood. In the moonlight pouring down on the terrace I saw her shiver.

She gave a little shake. “I’m going up, Jerry.” There was a forced tone in her voice that made it sound as if she had just avoided adding — to the execution chamber.

“You, you don’t have to stay.”

“So?... I’m staying, Val.”

I followed her into the hallway and, at the foot of the stairs, took her hand and kissed it. It was a cold little hand. But she walked up the staircase steadily enough. “Don’t you worry,” I called after her, “I’ll be right here in the living-room all night long. And the lights will be on and I’ll be awake. Just you give a yell if there’s any nonsense.” As she went around the turn of the stairs and disappeared, she forced a smile and gave a little wave with one hand.

If it was half as bad as she imagined, though, she was a brave kid, I thought, as I glanced into the kitchen and saw that the windows were closed and locked. I also turned the bolt inside the front door and inside the door of the steps leading down to the basement and garage. If there was any funny business around, I wasn’t going to guess where it came from, anyhow. But of course there wasn’t; how could there be? Valerie herself said she was sure nobody was prowling about her house. It was just imagination and overwrought nerves. Nothing at all would happen tonight and the reason it wouldn’t happen would be because I was there. I made a note to advance this in the morning as an excellent reason why I should always be there.

Now I was in the living-room, where I turned on the indirect lighting and secured all the windows except two of the French ones giving onto the terrace. I intended to sit down between these myself when I had picked out a book from the shelves across the room.

This I did, and by the time I had finished, it was after two in the morning. The slight noises of Valerie moving around upstairs and drawing water in the bathroom, had long since ceased. I didn’t feel like reading any more and the radio was in the wall right beside me. I turned the volume down low and fiddled with that for an hour.

I tired of that, too. I got up, lit a cigarette, and stood in one of the open windows looking out over the terrace. The moon had got into the west now but it was still shining brightly, a beautiful night, cool and fresh — and peaceful.

Then Valerie screamed.

It broke the quiet, like a ton of rock crashing into a still pool. I jerked up and stood in motionless surprise for a moment; to this day I don’t know what happened to the cigarette. But I wasn’t motionless for long; if I have any idea of what terror is, there was sheer terror in that cry.

I ran for the hallway, and as I ran, I shouted some stupid thing, like, “What’s the matter?” I started to take the stairs two steps at a time, and stumbled; I wasn’t familiar enough with that particular stairs. It is important to note that I plunged up them a step at a time, as fast as I could. Because a third of the way up before I had reached where they spiralled, someone began to follow me! There was no question about it at all; even in my haste to get to Valerie (and there was no question of that either) the pounding footsteps behind me were so clear and unmistakable that, when I reached the place where the stairs turned, I turned, with an arm drawn back to slug the fellow, who could not possibly have any business there.

And the stairs behind me were absolutely empty!

I couldn’t wait; I ran on and dashed into Valerie’s room. After the lights in the hall, it seemed pitch black but luckily I knew where the light switch was, and found it. She was sitting up in bed, clutching the blankets and sheets around her, and shaking with fear. I was a little jolted myself, after that business on the stairs.

“Where the devil is it?” I demanded fiercely. Without the slightest idea of what I meant.

But Valerie didn’t answer. She had collapsed on the bed and was pushing frightened sobs into the pillows. I suppose if I’d had any sense I’d have gone over to her and taken her in my arms, but I’m not a very wild sort of fellow and I’ve never been much in bedrooms with beautiful-looking girls like Valerie. So I just stood where I was and kept asking what it was all about. Not that it did me much good; all I could get out of her, even after the sobbing had subsided to whimpering, was that “It” had gone. Curiously enough, she asked me to turn the lights off in order to make sure of this.

Naturally I made a careful search of the room and went out on the adjacent sleeping porch. I found nothing and came back to look through the other two rooms and the bathrooms on the second floor. Nothing there, either. Valerie had quieted down now and insisted that she would be all right and go to sleep again. I wasn’t especially satisfied to leave her but she insisted and, also, I was anxious to go through the rest of the house. I hadn’t said anything about being followed as I ran up, but I couldn’t see for the life of me how anyone could have come halfway up the stairs behind me and then vanished; there wasn’t any place for him to jump to so suddenly. The more I thought of it, the less I understood.

So I went down, still a little reluctantly, and searched through the lower floor. Here again there were no results, no sign of anyone except myself having been in the house, and the windows and doors were all locked just as I had left them. I locked the two open windows in the living-room and descended to the garage and the little cellar. The same answer over again; nothing disturbed, everything fastened on the inside.

I came back and opened one of the windows. Neither head nor tail could I make out of what had happened. Of course I didn’t know what had frightened Valerie but what I myself had met on the staircase was beginning to make me doubt that overwrought nerves could any longer be a complete explanation. I simply could not believe that the sounds behind me had been imagined; they had been as clear and distinct, as loud and plain, as any ordinary sounds I had ever heard; they had been unmistakable footsteps, heavy and solid.

And now I heard something else. No scream this time; what came to my ears was the sound of running feet above. For the second time I made for the hall.

I was just in time to see Valerie begin a rush down the stairs, her face once more a mask of terror. She came around the curving steps all right and halfway down the straight steps below them. The lights were on and I could see perfectly plainly. Just about where the footsteps that had followed me had ceased, she suddenly pitched forward, as if someone had given her a shove from behind. There was no person, nor anything else, near her.

She landed at the foot of the steps with a crash, unconscious. As I reached her and raised her body to a sitting position, I saw that her right leg was doubled up under her in a posture that could only mean it was broken. I looked around desperately for someone or something that had attacked her. I saw nothing whatsoever; the lights burned steadily and brightly, there was not a sound in the house.

I carried her into the living-room and laid her on a lounge. I slid back the panel of the bar and drew a glass of water, grabbed a brandy bottle in the other hand. When I got back to the lounge, she was already stirring; and I gave her a sip of water first, then the straight brandy. She groaned, tried to sit up and clung to me. “Jerry, Jerry, something pushed me.” She groaned again.

I was so upset that for some minutes I couldn’t think what to do. Valerie had to have a doctor; I couldn’t leave her alone, and I mustn’t be found with her at an hour like this. What a nasty thing conventions are, anyhow. I laid her back on the lounge as gently as I could and walked over to the telephone. I wouldn’t have been much surprised if it had failed to work, but the dial-tone was clear and the little clicks came back in succession as I moved the disk.

“Hello,” said a sleepy voice.

My tone was probably fairly strained and excited. “Get a doctor for Valerie! Get him out here as quick as you can! And get here yourself; you’ve got to get here before him. Do you—”

Mary is pretty quick on the trigger, I’ll say that for her. And she isn’t one of those silly females who ask a hundred questions when there is something to be done. She said sharply, “I’ll get him. Coming, Jerry.” And snapped the phone down.

Twenty minutes later Mary walked through the French window and I made another search of the house, once more a futile one. As I jumped over the rail of the terrace, a headlight beam shot up in the dim light above the woods to the south; so the doctor was coming, too.

I walked aimlessly through the trees in the general direction of home. I was bewildered and I was angry, but I hadn’t anything on which to focus the anger. What the devil was going on? Something was attacking Valerie, but when you looked, nothing was there to hit back at. Imagination and tricky nerves were out now, definitely. I had heard the footsteps on the stairs and in full light I had seen Valerie thrown down the steps — by nothing. For a time I cursed with vigor and, strangely, it didn’t relieve a single feeling. “What the hell, what the hell?” I groaned in a fury of futility. She had been hurt and she would be hurt again, unless something were done. But what could be done? Just the same, it had to be, it—

For no reason that I can think of, a picture formed itself all at once in my mind. Only a month before I had stood in a basement room in the Metropolitan Museum, in complete darkness, facing an ancient Aztec curse contained in an old, a very old manuscript. Several of us had gathered there on a crazy bet, to test the power of the ancient and magic script. A strange thing had happened there — or so it had seemed at the time. The picture I had now was that of the man who had so abruptly appeared at the height of the phenomenon, a clear-cut picture of his steady eyes, his unruffled, even amused calm, his complete unbluffableness.

I remember talking with him at his apartment later; being impressed with the terrific extent of his knowledge and experience. I remembered his profound and sane utterances on confused and complicated issues. His name was Tarrant, I recalled...

I quickened my steps and my walking took on an intended direction.

I drove into New York in the sedan. At the door of Tarrant’s apartment, Katoh, the little Japanese butler who was a doctor in his own country, answered my ring. Despite my disheveled appearance and the peculiar hour of my visit — it was just six-forty-five — his welcoming grin held no element of surprise.

“How do, Mister Phelan. Come in, please. Mr. Tarrant out now for ride in Park, but back soon. You have breakfast? Yiss.”

While Katoh set another place beside the one already prepared, I had time to reflect on the strangeness of my mission and even to become somewhat embarrassed. After all, I had only met Tarrant once; he had been friendly, certainly, but there was no reason to suppose he would wish to interest himself in this affair of mine. Well, I’d put it up to him, anyhow; it was too late to reconsider now. Besides, Valerie’s danger was more important than anything else. Then he came in.

He walked through the hallway and stopped in the living-room entrance, in well-worn riding togs. He, at least, looked at me in surprise, then more keenly. “Well, Jerry Phelan. What brings you in so early? Something on your mind, you look worried and dragged out.”

“I’ve spent the night fighting a ghost. And the ghost won.”

Tarrant smiled. “It sounds promising,” he commented. “But no more now. I’ll jump into the shower and then we’ll both have some breakfast. After that, I’d like to hear about it.” In an astonishingly short period he reappeared, this time in a lounging robe. We ate Katoh’s delicious meal with only a few casual remarks interspersed. After we had finished, Tarrant got up and crossed the room for cigarettes, then stretched out in a big chair opposite me. “Go ahead,” he invited, “tell me about it.”

I told him about Valerie. Once started, there seemed to be quite a lot to tell, and he interrupted me occasionally with questions. “This Miss Mopish must be rich?” he ventured at one point.

“She is very well off,” I replied, “though she isn’t tremendously rich. She and her brother are orphans, you see, and they were in very poor circumstances, practically poverty-stricken, she told me, until some distant relative died and left her his whole estate which was considerable.”

“Just to her? The brother got nothing?”

“No, John didn’t get anything. He is still as poor as he ever was, but his profession will bring him in plenty some day, with the progress he’s making now. Meantime Valerie is very generous with him; I’m sure she makes him a pleasant allowance. They always seem to be very fond of each other.”

“I believe I’ve heard of him. Didn’t he design those modern houses they were showing up at Radio City last month?”

“Yes, he did those. He’s getting quite a reputation now. Three months ago he went over to Rome as a result of some prize he got. His design won a competition and they wanted him to come across and supervise the finishing touches on the building... He’s on his way back now; he’ll be landing in another day or so.”

I got back then to our real business and told him of Valerie’s increasing nervousness after John’s departure and how I had come to insist on staying with her the night before. To the best of my ability I described what had occurred, but in Tarrant’s living-room, it didn’t sound very convincing, even to me.

“But I tell you I heard those footsteps myself! I saw her pushed off the stairs, and I swear that nothing touched her!”

My obvious sincerity impressed him. “Of course,” he admitted, “if you are really right about it, it’s an amazing performance. There’s no need in asking whether you could be mistaken; I can see you are convinced... Well, I haven’t any explanation I can offer you from this distance. I don’t believe in haunted houses and I’ve never yet heard of a modernistic house equipped with ghosts.”

The crucial moment had arrived. “Will you come out for a few days and see these things for yourself? You said once you were interested in peculiar happenings, and this one is the most peculiar I’ve ever seen. I can’t get anywhere with it and I’m worried to death about Valerie.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about the girl,” Tarrant said. “Her brother will be back in a day or so to take care of her.”

“No. He won’t be any more use when he gets here, than I am. He lives at the big house, not with Valerie in the new one. I don’t believe she will let him stay with her, anyhow; she has an idea that she has to fight the thing out alone. But it isn’t just imagination she’s fighting, it’s something a good deal more dangerous than that.” I knew I was imposing on him but he was the only one I could think of to turn to. “I wish you’d come, if you can.”

For some moments he considered in silence. Then he seemed to have made up his mind. He gave an unusual whistle and his valet appeared in the doorway. “Katoh, pack a bag for each of us. We are going to spend a few days in the country.”

We stood in the small hallway of Valerie’s house. Valerie was upstairs in bed and Annie was with her. We had had luncheon at home with Mary who assured us that everything had been done that could be done. After luncheon we had come over to the new house and I had taken Tarrant up and introduced him. Valerie, of course, looked perfectly lovely sitting up in bed and I could see that my friend was even startled by her unexpected beauty. Whatever misgivings I may have had about bringing him into the affair vanished at once, for it was clear with the first few words that Valerie liked him and was prepared to trust him. And indeed his calm matter-of-factness and his low, steady voice were reassurance itself.

Now we stood in the hall below, Tarrant and Katoh and myself. Tarrant said, “That sister of yours is a fine girl, Jerry. Most attractive.” Then more briskly, “Well, let’s make a little experiment and see whether your ghost is still around. See if you can find a ladder, will you, Katoh?”

A tall step-ladder was discovered and placing it beside the stairs, Tarrant mounted it and perched on top. “Apparently the wraith is not afraid of light, so we might as well try to conjure him up now. Jerry, you had better tell them up above that we are making some experiments, so they won’t be frightened. And, Katoh, you walk up the stairs while I sit here and observe.”

The little Japanese gravely mounted the steps. And nothing at all happened. At the top he turned and came down again. “No ghost,” he remarked blandly.

“Now you, Jerry.”

I ran up the stairs, and there the footsteps were, about two treads behind me, clear and audible. Tarrant’s arm shot out and extended part way across the step I had just passed. The footsteps went under his arm and continued. As I had done the night before, I stopped halfway up and turned on my pursuer. Although I had known what to foresee, the recurrence of the phenomenon was so impressive that I really expected to find someone at my back. As I stood there, Tarrant’s expression for the first time held more than polite incredulity.

“Hmm,” said Tarrant. “He’s awake now, evidently. You heard that, of course, Katoh?”

“I hear.” The valet’s face was expressionless.

“All right, come on down, Jerry. Now I want you to do that again, only go all the way up, this time. Don’t stop till you get to the hall upstairs. Katoh, you run up about three or four steps behind him.”

We did this and I was followed again. Not only by Katoh. Between him and myself, other footsteps pounded up the stairs. It was a weird feeling, this business of an unknown behind you, and I had all I could do to keep from stopping once more and turning around. The thought of the valet, also behind me, was distinctly pleasant. It may sound incredible but near the top of the flight he increased his speed and reached vainly at the empty air at my back. That’s how overwhelmingly natural the thing was. The footsteps followed me to the top.

As I watched Katoh returning to the ground floor, it seemed to me that at one point he made a peculiar movement. I looked at him queerly. “Did you feel a slight push on the way down?”

He shook his head. “No. No push.”

Tarrant slid down the ladder and stood with his hands in his pockets. “There is no use doing any more of this. There’s something here I don’t understand. Under some circumstances I’d think of mass suggestion but I happen to know how to avoid that for myself. It’s an impressive demonstration of magic.” He looked over at the valet. “What do you think, Katoh?”

“Is mahg-ic. But not here. This more like jiu-jitsu, I think. Also might be dangerous.”

“It is dangerous.” Tarrant’s tone was decisive. “There is something here far more objective than imagination. It is objective and it is in this house. Miss Mopish must be moved to the other place. I shall insist on it. We three will spend the night here and we’ll spend it alone, except for whatever this intruder is.”

Valerie finally consented. I never thought she would, but Tarrant is a persuasive talker. After twenty minutes or so, most of which was spent in pointing out that something was in the house and that it simply could not be a matter of her own subjective nervousness, she agreed.

I stayed a moment after Tarrant had left the room. “Jerry,” said Valerie, “please take care of yourself tonight. I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.”

That made me feel grand. “I’ll take care of whatever is around here,” I said grimly, “if I can once get my hands on it.”

That night we divided our forces. Katoh was stationed in the entrance between the hallway and the living-room, where he could observe all of the latter and at the same time be close to the foot of the stairs. I sat in Valerie’s own room upstairs; and Tarrant roved through the house, now here, now there.

I was tired — I had had no sleep the previous night. We began our vigil about eleven in the evening and the hours dragged by interminably. Nothing happened; I just sat in the dark and waited. At first the fact that I didn’t know what I was waiting for kept me keyed up but finally I decided to lie down on the bed and rest my body, anyhow. Of course I fell asleep.

I don’t know how much later it was when I began dreaming of a forest fire. As the flames mounted higher and higher in dazzling brilliance, I woke and sat up. For a moment I had no idea where I was, nor was I concerned with that. Opposite the foot of Valerie’s bed a full-length mirror was set in the wall and this mirror was mysteriously bright, although no light in the room was on. That was puzzling, though not especially terrifying; but something else was. In the center of the mirror, illuminated by the unexplained glow, was a clear and gruesome image of a scaffold with a human figure dangling from it!

I gasped and rubbed my eyes. Yes, there it was, no doubt about it. Even as I stared at it, it began to fade — just like a fadeout in the movies. I called to Tarrant, but when he came in, I hardly believed that I had seen anything real myself.

We sat discussing it in the darkness. I made no concealment of the fact that I had been asleep and that when I had first seen it, I had not been fully awake. It hadn’t lasted long but it seemed to me that before it had faded out completely, I had been plenty awake. As we went on talking I still sat on the bed, supporting myself with one hand which was buried in the pillow on which my head had rested. Happening to glance down presently, I noticed that the pillow was becoming bright, as if a light were focused on it; and at almost the same instant Tarrant grunted with surprise.

We both saw it this time. The mirror glowed again and we were treated to a close-up of the same previous picture. An agonized face stared out at us, the noose knotted behind one ear, the rope leading upward.

As the image began to fade once more, Tarrant was out of his chair and pressing the electric light button across the room. Instantly the picture vanished. A moment later he was knocking with his fist over the now empty mirror, sounding it and the walls immediately beside it. There appeared no hint of any hollowness, however; both glass and wood gave a solid response to his pounding.

“I shall examine that mirror more carefully in the morning,” he promised. “We can’t do much now. Let us turn the lights out and see if there is any more.”

But though we sat through the next two hours to daylight, no further display occurred. Nothing further of any kind occurred, in fact. The image of that face of agony kept haunting me, nonetheless, and I began to understand the added horror, were I convinced as Valerie had been, that the thing was being projected from my own morbid mind. Even the position of the bed would add to that illusion, for the mirror was directly opposite it and in the natural course of events reflected the bed and its occupant.

I also realized why she had wanted the lights turned off the night before, in order to see if “It” was still there.

The following day I spent at home in my own bed. Sound asleep. Mary drove Tarrant into Norrisville and he returned with various instruments, such as a yardstick, a saw, chisels, and a hammer. He also procured from Valerie the original plans of the house.

“What did you want all that stuff for?” I inquired the same evening, when I was told about it. “Were you looking for hidden passages or recesses in the house?”

“No,” he assured me. “Even without the plans, you can see that there is no place anywhere for a secret passage large enough to be used by a monkey. And by the way, I took that mirror out and there was nothing behind it but solid wall. No signs of its being connected with any kind of mechanism at all.”

“So what we saw was not the result of mechanical arrangement?”

“No, it wasn’t. I am certain that there is no mechanical contrivance in the entire house in any way connected with the phenomena.”

“So what? Damn it all, Tarrant, we’re completely stymied. What in heaven’s name can be causing those sights and sounds?”

“I believe I could tell you the answer to that now,” he asserted calmly enough. “Half an hour’s more work tomorrow and I’m sure I shall have the whole answer... I’ll need a good, high ladder, though.”

“I’ll see that you get the ladder. But what is the answer?”

He would say no more, however. “I shall tell all of you, say day after tomorrow, when Miss Mopish’s brother arrives home. He will certainly be interested in the things that have been going on in his house.”

I was bitten with a terrific curiosity, for I felt certain that Tarrant would not have claimed a solution he had not achieved. Nevertheless, try as I would, I failed to get any satisfaction. On the other hand, Tarrant, too, was disappointed. That very evening Valerie received a radio from John, saying that he had been taken ill during the crossing and would have to be transferred directly from the ship to a hospital in New York. Two days later, when it was learned that he was really desperately sick and would be confined for a considerable period at least, Tarrant gave up his notion and summoned us to the new house to exorcise, as he said, the ghost. Valerie was brought back, in a chair, and Mary and Katoh and I were there, of course. Also, at the last moment. Tarrant insisted that Annie, Valerie’s maid, should come.

The demonstration was simple.

We all trooped out into the hall after Tarrant and stood grouped about; I noticed at once that a step had been removed from the staircase and through the aperture could be seen a slanting strip of wood, backing it. Valerie’s house was certainly well constructed.

“I want you, Mr. Phelan, to walk up those stairs, then turn around and walk down them.”

I did so, climbing over the missing step. Somewhat to my own surprise no sound accompanied me other than my own footsteps on the hard wood.

“Now, Mr. Phelan, kindly run up the stairs as fast as you can. But when you come down, walk; please be sure of that, walk.”

This time there could be no question of it; three treads behind me the ghostly footsteps followed my own to the floor above. Tarrant watched my descent, then spoke quietly.

“One would hardly suppose that so simple a thing could be so terrifying. The sounds that followed Mr. Phelan are, of course, no more than an echo. Here” — through the missed step he tapped the slanting wood behind it — “is an ingenious sounding board, so made that it reflects the echo downward; thus the echoed steps appear always to be just behind the person mounting the stairs. When they are taken at a walk, nothing happens; the echo functions only for running footsteps. I am sure that Miss Mopish could be guaranteed to run — at times, anyhow.

“But the staircase is more dangerous than yet appears. In a house where all the furnishings and all the fixtures, even the construction itself, is modernistic, the eye is led away and confused by curious angles, by surfaces and planes at unaccustomed slants. It is not remarkable, therefore, that, seen from this hallway, the various steps appear uniform. But they are not uniform. I have measured them carefully and at a point just below the turn in the stairs three steps in succession have such dimensions as to cause one to slip there. That is what happened to Miss Mopish a few nights ago. She was not pushed off the stairs — she slipped forward so suddenly that the impression was the same. It happened in a much less degree to my assistant when he came down the stairs and we are indebted to his excellent leg reflexes and his quick recognition for the first hint of what sort of thing was happening here.”

He turned suddenly to Valerie, seated in her chair by the living-room entrance. “Both Mr. Phelan and I have seen the apparitions in your mirror, Miss Mopish; you may dismiss entirely any notion that you manufactured them yourself. For these the arrangement is more difficult than in the matter of the stairs, but simple, once one gets on to it.

“At the end of your room upstairs are two French windows opening upon a sleeping porch and above each is a permanent transom of leaded glass. In these transoms are set four prisms. The most interesting are the two which contain tiny replicas of the images seen in the mirror; the other two simply concentrate the moonlight upon the pillow of the bed so that it will frequently happen that anyone sleeping there will be awakened. Then the image-prisms function, concentrating their light and images in the mirror. The angles, of course, are very carefully worked out, to correspond with certain positions of the moon in the sky. To the naked eye the moon’s motion is imperceptible but, actually, it is always moving. The prisms, protected by the overhang of the roof, only function fully for a period of seconds, the image then fading out and making it more probable than ever that the vision was due to a disordered imagination. By the time a witness arrives, the picture is gone. I am certain these pictures have appeared at particular times, when the moon has been full, or nearly full, for example.”

Valerie nodded.

“As a matter of fact the images are not nearly as clear as they seem to be in the middle of the night, with one’s eyes accustomed to darkness after some hours’ sleep. The lighting in the room overwhelms them completely; that is also why the sun, even should it occupy the same relative position as the moon, does not cause them in the daytime when the room is bright.

“There was a somewhat similar arrangement in a temple in Egypt in the old days, called Het Abtit or the House of the Net. I do not know whether your brother is interested in Egyptology but, if not, then he has struck upon a very similar arrangement. The temple arrangement ensured that at high noon upon one special day of each year the Net, for which the building was named, should be illuminated through the temple roof in such a fashion that its ordinary outlines vanished and a resplendent picture of the miracle of the Virgin Birth appeared in its place. In the present instance we find the same principles used for a far less worthy purpose... I have taken the liberty of removing the prisms from your transoms. I do not know of any further phenomena in the house. Have there been any?”

“No,” Valerie answered in a low voice, so low as to be scarcely audible. “That is all, the mirror and the stairs. It was enough.”

“In the case of a girl only a few years recovered from so serious a breakdown as I understand occurred,” Tarrant went on, looking about at the rest of us, “it will readily be appreciated how such apparently inexplicable events would work upon her. Especially as one of them, the footsteps, if not the other phenomena also, were devised to correspond with previous obsessions. She would naturally suppose a return of her former troubles, which this time, however, could be guaranteed not to yield to any subjective technique at all, since they depended upon quite objective arrangements, having nothing to do with her personal imagination. It was a cruel performance; fortunately we have discovered its nature in time.”

From my interest in Tarrant’s explanation I abruptly awoke to its implications. I cried out, “Why, the damned skunk! But what could he — but what — but why?”

“That is something I do not feel myself commissioned to find out, Jerry. But money has caused plenty of trouble and is still doing it. I do not know who is the beneficiary under Miss Mopish’s will, nor do I wish to. I might also point out that, after a few years in a sanitarium, an administrator is usually appointed for the patient’s estate.”

I was so mad I could have knocked the stairs down with my bare hands; but Valerie was sobbing. So I went to her.

John Mopish died the following week in his New York hospital. And it was damn lucky for him that he did. I don’t know whether Valerie was glad or sorry, for we never mention him. I do know, though, that she kept me waiting only a month, the darling.