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She had purchased a large stone church in West Halkin Street and made it over into one of

the strangest homes ever conceived by woman. The gallery of the church had been

continued all around it and divided into bedrooms and bathrooms. The organ had been

retained, and when it was played all the partitions of the rooms seemed to throb. On the ground

floor was a grand reception room with art treasures fit for a museum; among them was a

splendid collection of clocks; a large one struck the quarter-hours, and the front of the clock

opened and a gold and ivory bird came out and sang lustily. Lady Caillard also collected scissors.

Whoever came to that home was at once presented with a copy of the late husband's poems, also a

copy of her ladyship's pamphlet entitled: Sir Vincent Caillard Speaks from the Spirit World. If

you could devise a new kind of praise for either of these volumes it would be equivalent to a

meal-ticket for the rest of your life—or, at any rate, of Lady Caillard's life.

Mr. and Mrs. Dingle and Madame Zyszynski were comfortably ensconced in this former house

of God, and Beauty had had time to collect all the delicious gossip concerning its affairs. Pausing

only for a tribute of grief to Freddi, she opened up to her son a truly thrilling line of

conversation. Lady Caillard had become a convert to spiritualism, and now lived as completely

surrounded by angels and ministers of grace as William Blake in his most mystical hours. She

maintained a troop of mediums, and one of the spirits had directed the invention of a machine

called the "Communigraph," whereby Sir Vincent, called "Vinny," could send messages to his

wife, called "Birdie." The machine had been set up in "The Belfry," as this home was called, and

had been blessed by Archdeacon Wilberforce in a regular service; thereafter the seance room,

known as the "Upper Room," was kept sacred to this one purpose, and at a regular hour every

Wednesday evening Sir Vincent gave his wife a communication which he signed V.B.X., meaning

"Vinnie, Birdie, and a Kiss." These messages were now being compiled into a book entitled A New

Conception of Love.

But, alas, love did not rule unchallenged in these twice-consecrated premises. There was a new

favorite among the mediums, a woman whom the others all hated. Beauty's voice fell to a

whisper as she revealed what huge sums of money this woman had been getting, and how she

had persuaded her ladyship to bequeath her vast fortune to the cause of spiritualism, with the

spirits to control it. Lady Caillard's two children, lacking faith in the other world, wanted their

father's money for themselves, and had quarreled with their mother and been ousted from her

home; they had got lawyers, and had even called in Scotland Yard, which couldn't help. There

was the most awful pother going on!

Into this seething caldron of jealousies and hatreds had come Mabel Blackless, alias Beauty

Budd, alias Madame Detaze, alias Mrs. Dingle, herself an object of many kinds of suspicion; also

her husband, teaching and practicing love for all mankind, including both adventuresses and

defrauded children; also a Polish woman medium with an unspellable name. Beauty, of course,

was looked upon as an interloper and intriguer, Parsifal Dingle's love was hypocrisy, and

Madame's mediumship was an effort to supplant the other possessors of this mysterious gift.

Beauty was as much pleased over all this as a child at a movie melodrama. Her tongue tripped

over itself as she poured out the exciting details. "Really, my dears, I wouldn't be surprised if

somebody tried to poison us!" Her manner gave the impression that she would find that a

delightful adventure.

One of the guests in this strange ex-church was the Grand Officer of the Legion d'Honneur

and Knight Commander of the Bath. He appeared to be failing; his skin had become yellowish

brown, with the texture of parchment; his hands trembled so that he kept them against some

part of his body, and would not attempt to write in the presence of anyone. He had grown

much thinner, which accentuated the prominence of his eagle's beak. As usual, Zaharoff kept

himself out of all sorts of trouble, and took no sides in this family row; his interest was in

getting messages from the duquesa, and he would sit tirelessly as long as any medium would

stand it. But he still hadn't made up his mind entirely; he revealed that to Lanny, not by a

direct statement, but by the trend of the questions he kept putting to the younger man.

It was permissible for Lanny to mention that a young friend of his had not been heard from

in Germany; whereupon this hiveful of mediums set to work secreting wax and honey for him.

Most of it appeared to be synthetic; Lanny became sure that some clever trickster had guessed

that the missing person was a relative of Johannes Robin, himself recently named in the

newspapers as missing, and now suddenly arriving with the Budds. Since Hansi had been

interviewed in Paris on the subject, it couldn't be he who was lost. Since Freddi had been in

London and was known to all friends of the Budds, it really wasn't much of a detective job to get

his name. Every issue of the Manchester Guardian was full of stories about concentration

camps and the mistreatment of the Jews; so the spirits began pouring out details—the only

trouble being that no two of them agreed on anything of importance.

There was only one medium whom Lanny knew and trusted, and that was Madame; but

her control, Tecumseh, was still cross with Lanny and wouldn't take any trouble for him. In

New York the control had been willing to repeat French sentences, syllable by syllable, but now

he refused to do the same for German. He said it was too ugly a language, with sounds that no

civilized tongue could get round—this from a chieftain of the Iroquois Indians! Tecumseh said

that Freddi was not in the spirit world, and that the spirits who tried to talk about Freddi

didn't seem to know anything definite. Tecumseh got so that he would say to a sitter: "Are you

going to ask me about that Jewish fellow?" It threatened to ruin Madame's mediumship and

her career.

VIII

Marceline had been invited to spend the summer with the Pomeroy-Nielsons, as a means of

making up for the yacht cruise which had been rudely snatched away. Marceline and Alfy,

having the same sixteen years, were shooting up tall and what the English call "leggy." It is the

age of self-consciousness and restlessness; many things were changing suddenly and confusing

their young minds. With other friends of the same age they played with delicate intimations of

love; they felt attraction, then shied away, took offense and made up, talked a great deal about

themselves and one another, and in various ways prepared for the serious business of matrimony.

Marceline exercised her impulse to tease Alfy by being interested in other boys. She had a

right to, hadn't she? Did she have to fall in love the way her family expected? What sort of old-

fashioned idea was that? The future baronet was proud, offended, angry, then exalted.

Himmelhoch jauchzend, zum Tode betrübt!

Irma and Lanny motored up for a week end, to see how things were going. A lovely old place

by the Thames, so restful after the storms and strains of the great world; especially after

Berlin, with its enormous and for the most part tasteless public buildings, its statues, crude and

cruel, celebrating military glory. Here at The Reaches everything was peaceful; the little old

river seemed tame and friendly, safe to go punting on, just right for lovers and poets.

It had been here a long time and would stay while generation after generation of baronets

appeared, grew up and studied at the proper schools, wore the proper comfortable clothes,

established "little theaters," and wrote articles for newspapers and weeklies proving that the

country was going to pot.

Here was Sir Alfred, tall, somewhat eccentric, but genial and full of humor; his hair had

turned gray while his mustache remained black. Excessive taxes had completely ruined him, he

declared, but he was absorbed in collecting records of twentieth-century British drama for a

museum which some rich friend was financing. Here was his kind and gentle wife, the most

attentive of hostesses. Here was Nina, helping to run this rambling old brick house, built onto

indefinitely by one generation after another and having so many fireplaces and chimneys that in

wintertime it would take one maid most of her time carrying coal-scuttles. Here were three very

lovely children, eager and happy, but taught to be quieter than any you would find in America.

Finally here was the lame ex-aviator whom Lanny considered the wisest man he knew, the

only one with whom he could exchange ideas with complete understanding. Rick was one who

had a right to know everything about Lanny's German adventure, and they went off on the

river where nobody could hear them if they talked in low tones, and Lanny told the story from

beginning to end. It would be better that not even Nina should hear it, because there is a

strong temptation for one woman to talk to the next, and so things get passed on and

presently come to the ears of some journalist. After all, Johannes was a pretty important man,

and his plundering would make a rare tale if properly dressed up.

Rick was quite shocked when he learned how Lanny had permitted the Berlin newspapers to

publish that he was a sympathetic inquirer into National Socialism. He said that a thing like

that would spread and might blacken Lanny forever; there would be no way to live it down, or

to get himself trusted again. Lanny said he didn't mind, if he could save Freddi; but Rick

insisted that a man had no right to make such a sacrifice. It wasn't just a question of saving

one individual, but of a cause which was entitled to defense. Socialism had to be fought for

against the monstrosity which had stolen its name and was trying to usurp its place in history.

Lanny had thought of that, but not enough, apparently; he felt rather bad about it.

"Listen, Rick," he said; "there have to be spies in every war, don't there?"

"I suppose so."

"What if I were to go into Germany and become a friend of those higher-ups, and get all the

dope and send it out to you?"

"They would soon get onto it, Lanny."

"Mightn't it be possible to be as clever as they?"

"A darned disagreeable job, I should think."

"I know; but Kurt did it in Paris, and got away with it."

"You're a very different man from Kurt. For one thing, you'd have to fool him; and do you

think you could?"

"Beauty insists that I couldn't; but I believe that if I took enough time, and put my mind to

it, I could at least keep him uncertain. I'd have to let him argue with me and convince me. You

know I have a rare good excuse for going; I'm an art expert, and Germany has a lot to sell.

That makes it easy for me to meet all sorts of people. I could collect evidence as to Nazi

outrages, and you could make it into a book."

"That's already been done, you'll be glad to hear." Rick revealed that a group of liberal

Englishmen had been busy assembling the data, and a work called The Brown Book of the