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There was a good deal of gasping, plus a terminal-sounding
wheeze from Madame Blob, while hands were dropped all around the
table like hot potatoes. The medium continued to bark, sporadically
now, and with less ferocity. But Frances would not let go my hand,
nor Mrs. Locke's. Frances still was rocking, and I whipped my head
around to regard her in alarm.

Her eyes were screwed shut, and the strain I felt in her iron
grip was written on her features. Above the lace of her collar, the
cords of her neck stood out. Her lips were drawn back from her
teeth in a grimace, and her chin thrust forward. Suddenly, on the
forward apex of her rock, she went rigid.

I thought: She is in trance!

The candle flame trembled and came dangerously close to
extinguishing itself-although there was not a breath, not a whisper
of moving air in the room.

The medium let loose another flurry of barks.

Patrick came hurrying around the table to plant himself between
the medium and Frances, urging
sotto voce,
"Let go!
Something has gone terribly wrong, you must let go!" He attempted
to pry my friend's fingers from Mrs. Locke's hand, and I did not
know what to do. I worried that somehow his interference might
injure them in some way, as they now seemed both to be in the same
unnatural state, but what did I know of these things? The very air
was charged, and my skin all over little prickles. I hadn't the
slightest idea what was going on.

As I fretted over what to do, Frances opened both her eyes and
her mouth, and a deep, rough voice, not at all like her own, came
from her throat: "Lazarus, come away from there!"

This caused more gasping all around. The medium whined once and
fell back in her chair, Frances fell forward onto the table, all of
a sudden limp as a wet noodle, and I had my hand back. So, one
assumed, must Mrs. Locke.

Sounding the paragon of reason, at least to my own ears, I
remarked, "We need more light to help us ascertain what has
happened here."

"A moment, a moment." Patrick hovered over Mrs. Locke, but I
could not see what he was doing because his back was to me. As no
one else volunteered to light the wall sconces, we still had no
illumination but the one candle. I did not want to leave my
friend's side. With Patrick so solicitous of his own friend,
employer, mistress-perhaps she was to him all three-I turned my
attention to Frances as best I could in the near dark.

I placed my hand on the center of her back below the shoulder
blades and found that she was breathing slowly and regularly.
Somebody said, "Oh dear," and someone else said, "Well I never!"
and the man next to me rumbled, "We oughter get our money back if
that's all there's gonna be to it." I put my head near hers and
called softly, "Frances, can you hear me?" I repeated this several
times, with no result whatever.

Mrs. Locke, however, had recovered and was holding a whispered
conference with her solicitous confederate. He straightened up and
said, "Mrs. Locke requests that you all keep your seats." Then he
went about relighting the candles in the wall sconces. I reflected,
as I rubbed Frances's back, how much simpler it would be if they
had electric lighting in this place. Or even gas, though now that I
have been away from it for a while, I daresay gaslight smells
rather unpleasant.

The sense of disturbance around the table subsided somewhat, and
I became gradually uncomfortable from everyone's staring at me and
Frances. Everyone except Mrs. Locke, who had her handto her head,
obscuring her eyes, in a pose I thought overdramatic. My skepticism
had returned; I wondered if some piece of elaborate chicanery had
gone wrong, injuring an innocent in the process-for Frances was
still out cold. My suspicions made me bold, and I addressed the
medium directly, for surely if anyone were in charge it was
she!

"Mrs. Locke," I said, then waited until her hand descended from
its pose. Except for the fact that some of her hair had escaped its
pins, she seemed none the worse for her recent experience. The
blank expression had reclaimed her face; she looked like a
life-sized doll. She did not look at me or in any way acknowledge
my address, but I went on nevertheless: "Perhaps you can tell me
what to do for my friend? She seemed to go into trance along with
you. Surely we must bring her around!"

Slowly, and a little jerkily, like one of the automatons in Mr.
Sutro's Palace, the medium turned her head upon her neck-just her
head, the rest of her body did not move a jot-until her face met
mine. I watched anger build up in her dark eyes, which she then
proceeded to unleash on me and poor unconscious Frances.

"Get out!" Mrs. Locke shrilled. "Get out of here, both of you!
How dare you come to one of my seances under false pretenses! You
have created a disruption on the etheric plane, disturbed the
vibrations, and caused a breach with my contact in the spirit
world. You must go. Now!"

BUT HOW,'' asked my friend Michael Kossoff, who used to call
himself by the pseudonymous surname Archer, "could you leave there
with Mrs. McFadden unconscious, or in a trance, or whatever it
was?"

I stretched my stocking-clad feet toward the fire luxuriously,
rotating my ankles. Now that the experience was all behind me, it
made a good story, and from the other end of the couch Michael
listened intently while I continued: "Patrick, the man with the
face like a hawk, carried her to the auto. Frances was in a trance,
that is for certain. It was no ordinary faint. And besides"--having
toasted them sufficiently, I tucked my feet beneath me, Indian
style, and leaned back in the cushions-"I heard her myself speaking
in that strange voice. It really was the most peculiar thing!"

"Hmm," said Michael, frowning and drawing his black eyebrows
together in an ominous fashion.

"Oh dear," I said, "I hate it when you do that."

"My dear Fremont," he said, still frowning, "I am not
doing
anything."

"Well of course you are!" I reached over, stretching my arm
until my fingertips touched his forehead, and then I rubbed away
the puckers between his shapely brows. "You are frowning and saying
Hmm
in a way that means,
I
shall have to look into
this matter.
I will not have you investigating my friends,
Michael! It won't do."

He seized my hand and kissed my fingers. A quite delicious
thrill went through me and I grew much warmer than could be
accounted for by the fire alone. Then he began, by tugging on the
hand he'd trapped, to pull me toward him. His frown was gone but
one of those expressive eyebrows arched sharply up and he said,
"With your record for making peculiar friends, the bestowing of
your friendship should, in itself, be sufficient to warrant an
investigation."

"You include yourself in that observation, of course."

"Not really." He tucked me under his arm, and I rested my cheek
upon his chest. He was wearing a smoking jacket over pajamas,
having bathed while I was out at the seance with Frances, and he
smelled of Pears soap.

"Oh?" I angled my head the better to look up at his face. It is
quite a distinguished face-especially since he has grown his beard
back-but sometimes I miss that surprising little dent in his chin.
"I suppose you think you are not peculiar?"

He chuckled and his eyes danced. "I think, rather, that I am not
about to investigate myself, and your own as yet rudimentary
investigatory skills would not get you very far if you were to turn
them on me."

"Is that so?" I reached stealthily behind me, seized upon a
small needlepoint pillow, and then in one fluid motion sat up and
bashed him with it. This aggressive act brought on a flurry of
physical contact that ended with us both naked, sated, on the
hearthrug in front of the fire.

After that, spirits and seances did not seem at all
important.

I awoke in my own bed, with that distressing feeling of having
slept too late-though how one knows one has slept too late before
even being awake enough to see the clock, I have no idea. It is one
of life's little mysteries that has yet to yield itself to my
assiduous probing. A glance at the clock provided confirmation;
nevertheless I took the time to gaze fondly at the tousled, dark
head on the pillow beside me before I nudged its owner with my
elbow.

"Michael, wake up. We've slept too long!"

He growled and groused, but as he was making little noises I
knew he was awake. Regretfully-I do so hate getting up in the
morning-I slipped from under the covers before he could reach for
me, for if I did not, we would soon make ourselves even later. I
thrust my feet into my slippers and grabbed my robe from the
bedpost, belting it around me as I went to the window and looked
out.

Fog still shrouded the hills, but from this north-facing window
I glimpsed a glow through the mist, proof that the sun would soon
break through. Every morning when I got up, the first thing I did
was to come to this window and give thanks for being back in San
Francisco. While the Monterey Peninsula had been an interesting and
beautiful place to spend most of the previous year, this was
better. This was my true home. Even if our big, Italianate double
house at the north end of Divisadero Street did belong mostly to
Michael.

Michael shuffled over to me, wrapped his arms around my rib cage
just below my breasts, and dropped his head into the curve between
my neck and shoulder. His lips fastened on my skin andhe rumbled
like a rusty old cat: "If you would marry me, Fremont, I wouldn't
have to spend so many blasted mornings going clear back to my side
of the house to get dressed."

"Hush!" I replied affectionately, giving him a peck on the head
and a little shove toward the door. "If you were at all serious,
you'd never mention marriage at this time of day, when I'm most
likely to refuse whatever's on offer. I'll make our coffee
downstairs in the office this morning. We don't want to miss any
clients."

"God forbid!" Michael yawned and stretched and rubbed his eyes,
but I did not feel in the least sorry for him. I knew once he'd
washed his face and brushed his teeth he would be wide awake and
bursting with energy much sooner than I. In the doorway he turned
and said, "I suppose I'm elected to go to the bakery for muffins,
then? No chance of a real cooked breakfast?"

"There isn't time."

Michael went off into the hallway muttering something about
changing the hour of opening to ten o'clock, but I knew he would
never do it. A certain percentage of the (admittedly few) clients
we have already had find it necessary to stop by our office before
going to their own work. Therefore we open every day, except
Sunday, at eight-thirty. I myself would prefer a later hour, but it
is not practical.

Our business, which has been in existence for roughly six
months, is called the J&K Agency: J and K standing for Jones
and Kossoff, of course. Our card, and the brass oval on the front
door at my side-the north side-of our double house provide slightly
more information about the nature of our business:

The J&K Agency

disceet inquiries

J&K was Michael's idea: He claims that with the agency we
can capitalize on my natural talent and his own acquired skills.
(For complex reasons having to do with family and circumstance,
Michael has been a spy for most of his life; but for the past
couple of years he has been trying, with some success, to extricate
himself from spying.) I cannot argue with his reasoning, and have
been happy that he is teaching me the rudiments of the
investigatory process-though I daresay I could learn quite a lot
faster than Michael is willing to teach. It is only the discreet
part of this inquiry business that consistently gives me
trouble.

Fortunately we have one already well-trained employee, a young
man (well, I suppose he is about my own age, but somehow he seems
younger) named Aloysius Stephenson. He prefers, for obvious
reasons, to be called Wish. Wish is one of those rare individuals
who are too honest for their own good, and therefore it was not
difficult for Michael and me to lure him away from his job with the
San Francisco Police Department, where he was forever getting
himself into hot water.

The three of us do well together. Michael is, as it were, the
head honcho of our little outfit, being both chief adviser and
principal investor. I am more or less an indentured servant, having
signed a promissory note to Michael for one third of the house
(corresponding to the part I live in) and one half the cost of
starting up the business. This was necessary if we were to be
partners, for I have no means of my own until I come into my
inheritance- a thought not to be borne as in itself it implies my
father's death. Sometimes the one-sidedness of our supposed
partnership does bother me.

It was bothering me now, as I twisted my reddish-brown hair into
a coil and pinned it into a figure eight at the nape of my neck. I
frowned at myself in the mirror, feeling suddenly giddy and
disoriented by the riskiness of my refusal to marry. For Michael
could change his mind, withdraw his support, dissolve our
partnership at any time, without damage to himself; whereas I . .
.