We drew up in front of the Luther Inn, and a group of roughly dressed men gazed at us with the somewhat hostile interrogation that often marks a rural American community at the approach of strangers. These men wore mail-order coats of corduroy or suede—the air was growing nippier by the minute—and plow shoes or high laced boots under dungaree pants. All of them were of Celtic or Anglo-Saxon type.
“Hello!” cried Zoberg jovially. “I see you there, my friend Mr. Gird. How is your charming daughter?”
The man addressed took a step forward from the group on the porch. He was a rawboned, grizzled native with pale, pouched eyes, and was a trifle better dressed than the others, in a rather ministerial coat of dark cloth and a wide black hat. He cleared his throat before replying.
“Hello, Doctor. Susan’s well, thanks. What do you want of us?”
It was a definite challenge, that would repel or anger most men, but Zoberg was not to be denied. He scrambled out of the car and cordially shook the hand of the man he had called Mr. Gird. Meanwhile he spoke in friendly fashion to one or two of the others.
“And here,” he wound up, “is a very good friend of mine, Mr. Talbot Wills.”
All eyes—and very unfriendly eyes they were, as a whole—turned upon me. I got out slowly, and at Zoberg’s insistence shook hands with Gird. Finally the grizzled man came with us to the car.
“I promised you once,” he said glumly to Zoberg, “that I would let you and Susan dig as deeply as you wanted to into this matter of spirits. I’ve often wished since that I hadn’t, but my word was never broken yet. Come along with me; Susan is cooking dinner, and there’ll be enough for all of us.”
He got into the car with us, and as we drove out of the square and toward his house he conversed quietly with Zoberg and me.
“Yes,” he answered one of my questions, “the houses are old, as you can see. Some of them have stood since the Revolutionary War with England, and our town’s ordinances have stood longer than that. You aren’t the first to be impressed, Mr. Wills. Ten years ago a certain millionaire came and said he wanted to endow us, so that we would stay as we are. He had a lot to say about native color and historical value. We told him that we would stay as we are without having to take money from him, or from anybody else for that matter.”
Gird’s home was large but low, all one story, and of darkly painted clapboards over heavy timbers. The front door was hung on the most massive hand-wrought hinges. Gird knocked at it, and a slender, smallish girl opened to us.
She wore a woolen dress, as dark as her father’s coat, with white at the neck and wrists. Her face, under masses of thunder-black hair, looked Oriental at first glance, what with high cheekbones and eyes set aslant; then I saw that her eyes were a bright gray like worn silver, and her skin rosy, with a firm chin and a generous mouth. The features were representatively Celtic, after all, and I wondered for perhaps the fiftieth time in my life if there was some sort of blood link between Scot and Mongol. Her hand, on the brass knob of the door, showed as slender and white as some evening flower.
“Susan,” said Gird, “here’s Doctor Zoberg. And this is his friend, Mr. Wills.”
She smiled at Zoberg, then nodded to me, respectfully and rather shyly.
“My daughter,” Gird finished the introduction. “Well, dinner must be ready.”
She led us inside. The parlor was rather plainer than in most old-fashioned provincial houses, but it was comfortable enough. Much of its furniture would have delighted antique dealers, and one or two pieces would have impressed museum directors. The dining-room beyond had plate-racks on the walls and a long table of dark wood, with high-backed chairs. We had some fried ham, biscuits, coffee and stewed fruit that must have been home-canned. Doctor Zoberg and Gird ate heartily, talking of local trifles, but Susan Gird hardly touched her food. I, watching her with stealthy admiration, forgot to take more than a few mouthfuls.
After the repast she carried out the dishes and we men returned to the parlor. Gird faced us.
“You’re here for some more hocus-pocus?” he hazarded gruffly.
“For another séance,” amended Zoberg, suave as ever.
“Doctor,” said Gird, “I think this had better be the last time.”
Zoberg held out a hand in pleading protest, but Gird thrust his own hands behind him and looked sternly stubborn. “It’s not good for the girl,” he announced definitely.
“But she is a great medium—greater than Eusapia Paladino, or Daniel Home,” Zoberg argued earnestly. “She is an important figure in the psychic world, lost and wasted here in this backwater—”
“Please don’t miscall our town,” interrupted Gird. “Well, Doctor, I agree to a final séance, as you call it. But I’m going to be present.”
Zoberg made a gesture as of refusal, but I sided with Gird.
“If this is to be my test, I want another witness,” I told Zoberg.
“Ach! If it is a success, you will say that he helped to deceive.”
“Not I. I’ll arrange things so there will be no deception.”
Both Zoberg and Gird stared at me. I wondered which of them was the more disdainful of my confidence.
Then Susan Gird joined us, and for once I wanted to speak of other subjects than the occult.
III
“That Thing Isn’t My Daughter—”
It was Zoberg who suggested that I take Susan Gird for a relaxing drive in my car. I acclaimed the idea as a brilliant one, and she, thanking me quietly, put on an
