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"You seem to remember it word for word," I observed. Having such
an ability myself, I recognize it in another, though I was frankly
amazed to find such ability in the person of Edna Stephenson.

She simply nodded her head, as if she did this kind of thing so
often that it was not worth remarking, and indeed she probably did.
She went on: "You know what that blessed angel Ingrid Swann did
right there on that stage in front of all those people, Fremont?
She let the departed spirits, which is bodiless, use her own body
for to make themselves hands and arms and feet and the like.
Ectoplasm, that's what they make it out of, and it come out of her.
Out of Ingrid Swann. I seen it with me own eyes."

"I can't imagine!" I said, which was true.

"Well then, lemme tell ya." She scooted forward again and told
the rest of her tale with breathtaking urgency: "The the-ay-ter
went almost all dark, just only a few little glimmers of reflected
light from somewhere off her silvery dress, and off the frame of
that glass house. Which you could see the inside of through the
glass, of course."

Her head nodded vigorously, and so did I.

"Such a silence that was, of waiting. All eyes on the woman.
Then, little by little it starts. First like a wisp of white smoke
curling out of her mouth. She breathes the stuff out, y'see, out of
her nose and her mouth."

Charming,
I thought but did not say.

"So this white stuff keeps coming, and coming, till pretty soon
it's coming out of her in such a steady stream she has to open her
mouth, and out it pours, and swirls around and begins to climb the
glass walls of that box-that's why the glass is there, y'see, so's
it won't drift out over the audience. And my goodness me, did it
ever get colder'n a witch's titty in that the-ay-ter while Ingrid
was a-doin' her ectoplasmic extrusion."

Now, I did not believe in the least that Ingrid Swann was
somehow using her own body to give shape to spirits, nor did I
think that anything like ectoplasm actually existed. What I really
thought was that the phenomenon of having discovered and harnessed
an invisible substance-electricity-to do our bidding in such recent
years had given rise to the thought that there might be many other
invisible things that can be made to work for us . . . and this
idea has sometimes been taken to ridiculous limits. As far as I was
concerned, the concept of ectoplasm was right up there with the
most ridiculous.

Yet, as I listened to Edna tell about Ingrid Swann alone on a
darkened stage, inside her black cabinet, inside a glass box, with
this substance-whatever it was-streaming out of her mouth,
wreathing around her, I found myself more than half believing.
Certainly I wanted to believe. And so I asked:

"Did the ectoplasm then form itself into a body? Any
recognizable shape?"

"Hands." Ha-a-ands, she said. "Fingers, long skinny fingers
reaching out, feeling the glass of that box. It was just a
demonstration, see, that she could do it. Not like a real seance
where there might have been something happening."

"And in a real seance, what would have happened?"

"Why, the ectoplasm would have formed itself into the
recognizable shape of someone what's passed on. Or the person in
control-that's the consurge-he'd ask it questions or tell it to do
things, like hold a trumpet and blow it, ring a bell, rap on the
table once for yes, twice for no, stuff like that. Which she didn't
do none of."

"How long did it last?" I asked, unable even in my wildest
dreams to imagine ever having such an experience.

Edna shook her head wonderingly, again looking like an old but
credulous child. "Dunno. Longtime, it seemed. Afterward, that's
when I got to go up."

"Got to go up?"

"Uh-huh. From the audience, we could go up inside the glass box
if we wanted. See the residue of the ectoplasm."

In spite of myself, I felt a chill creeping along my skin.

"Like slime, it was," Edna said.

WHEREVER MICHAEL had gone, he had not taken Max; which was a
good thing, because of Bernal Heights being some distance away and
not easy to get to by streetcar. In fact, since I did have the use
of the auto, I had not bothered to ascertain whether there was or
was not a streetcar to that part of town. Mr. Conrad Higgins lived
on Precita Avenue, a short street of Victorian houses clinging to a
hillside with a spectacular view of the City of San Francisco in
the distance, and the Bay with its boats and islands. I stood
looking at that view for quite some time, because it refreshed me
and gave me hope. I had found Edna Stephenson's story of Ingrid
Swann's ectoplasmic extrusion to be both affecting and depressing,
and in fact had felt, during the longish drive out from our house
on the north end of Divisadero to Bernal Heights, as if a residue
of the story itself were somehow clinging to me like that cold
slime.

"Poor Ingrid," I murmured. The logical part of my brain told me
I should not feel sorry for her, because she must have been a
charlatan of a very high order indeed to produce such an illusion;
but some other part of my inner self, the part that is commonly
called in sentimental parlance the heart, simply understood how
hard Ingrid had worked, and how desperate she must have been, to
produce this illusion. Finally, in spite of myself, in spite of my
very best efforts, there was an even deeper, darker part of me that
asked the question:
What if it really happened?
What if
Ingrid Swann, at risk to her own health and certainly great
expenditure of energy, had really produced the substance called
ectoplasm out of her own body, so that spirits might have substance
for even the shortest and most futile of explorations in that glass
box?

"How lonely she must have been," I murmured. In my mind I had
such a vivid vision of her sitting enclosed, trapped, in that glass
box. And now the poor woman was dead. All because some vicious,
cruel person was murdering the mediums of my beloved City. Well, it
just wouldn't do.

I pulled myself together, marched up some very steep steps to a
front door, and rang the bell. I was quite prepared for no one to
be at home, as it was only the middle of the afternoon; but somehow
I didn't have the feeling that Mr. Conrad Higgins would prove to be
a nose-to-the-grindstone type of man. Else why would a woman like
Myra, also known as Ingrid, decide to leave him and earn her own
way in the world in the manner she had, which ultimately had gotten
her killed?

My surmises, or hunches, proved correct. I had to ring a second
time, and stand waiting for a while longer but then the door opened
inward to reveal one of the ugliest-looking men I had ever seen in
my entire life. I instinctively moved back half a step, which on
those narrow steps put me in danger of overbalancing and going
right down the whole steep flight. But I was able to stop myself
from that happening, and so cleared my throat and said, "Good day.
Mr. Higgins?"

"Who wants to know?" That voice might have come up from a gravel
pit. It suited his face, which was pitted, as if from the smallpox,
and in addition looked as if it might have been pounded out of
shape more than once. He had what I believe is called a cauliflower
ear, and his nose had been broken so many times it lay like a
squashed mass in the middle of his face. He was a good two inches
shorter than I, but perhaps three times as broad. A nasty
customer.

"My name is Fremont Jones." I produced a card from J&K and
handed it to this troll masquerading as a human. "I am a private
investigator working on a case that has direct bearing on your
wife's murder. I'd like to talk to you. May I come in?"

"Wife?" He tilted his head back and to the side, as if that
would help his eyes to emerge from the loose folds of flesh that
draped from his eyelids down below the orbits. "Don't have a wife.
Haven't had for years now. But come on in." His eyes swept over me
from head to foot as he stepped back to allow me entry. "You'll see
I'm telling the truth about there being no wife. Never realized
till she was gone how much the woman must have done to keep things
going around here."

He did not exaggerate. Conrad Higgins lived like a pig. He acted
worse, scratching himself with a dirty hand as he preceded me down
the hallway, saying, "The kitchen I do manage to keep pretty clean.
Also keep a pot of coffee going in there these days. Never know
when a pretty lady will drop by. Heh-heh-heh."

This last was accompanied by what he may have considered a coy
look over his shoulder.
Disgusting!
It was really all I
could do not to run away. "The kitchen will be fine," I said.

I did not, however, accept a cup of coffee but asked my
questions in a rapid-fire and efficient manner. I imagine I must
have come off like a severe schoolmarm, because he gave me no more
of those disgusting looks, nor did he seem anything but relieved
when I decided I had learned enough and rose to take my leave.

Out in the fresh air once more, I took a deep breath and prayed
(to the God I don't quite believe in) that I should never, ever
fall so low as this man had allowed himself to go.

On the drive back into the City, I mentally reviewed what I had
learned from Conrad Higgins: First, Myra had been an orphan
destined for "the fate worse than death, for a woman, if you know
what I mean" when he had "rescued" her by marrying her; second,
only two years later, he had tossed Myra out on her rear end (his
inelegant words) for being an unfit wife when she had month after
month demonstrated her inability to conceive a child; third, Conrad
himself was a famous prize fighter, deserving of the best in wives,
since he could "whup anything that stands on two legs and some that
stands on four in the state of California"; and fourth, since it
had been
her
fault he'd had to throw her out, and it
certainly wasn't
his
fault that his last fight three years
ago had left him unable to continue in the ring on account of he'd
lost his sense of balance,
then
it was only right she should
now be supporting him. Finally (he'd roared in that gravelly
voice), what the hell was he supposed to do for money now she was
dead?

Not wanting to put ideas into the head of this gross individual-
the thought of Ingrid Swann's delicate beauty in those hands being
truly repulsive beyond belief-I had not asked about a will, or who
would inherit whatever estate had been left. I assumed, since she
had reputedly been so successful, there would be a will. Of course
I must look into it. I was operating on the assumption that she
would have legally changed her name. I should have to go to the
Court House, the Hall of Records or some such. I wondered about the
so-called brother, Ngaio Swann.

"He will have changed his name from something more ordinary
too," I mumbled. "Nobody has as interesting a name as Ngaio Swann
unless he has made it up himself."

At any rate, the gross personage known as Conrad Higgins was
extremely unlikely to have had anything to do with the death of his
wife by either name, Myra or Ingrid. Because Myra Higgins had been
his meal ticket, his only means of support.

As I proceeded into the City on Mission Street, I mused over
something that had not occurred to me before: Why had Myra/ Ingrid
been so willing to support this despicable man? Was Ngaio maybe not
her brother, and did the despicable husband know about that and use
it to blackmail her?

"Hmm," I said aloud.

I had a lot to look into. How much of it would have to be done
before I dared leak the information about Conrad's existence to the
press, I did not yet know.

It was, I thought, a good beginning for Ingrid Swann's side of
my case. As for Abigail Locke's side, the best entry I had there
was probably still back in the office at Divisadero Street. Patrick
Rule and Frances McFadden were all too likely, whenever they got
together, to lose track of time.

"They're in the kitchen," said Edna as soon as I walked through
the door. No hello, no "How was your afternoon," no nothing, just
"They're in the kitchen." It was really quite unlike the
gregarious, not to mention garrulous Edna, so I nodded and
proceeded on the assumption that "they" were Frances and Patrick,
and that there was something going on that Edna did not
particularly like. Actually her facial expression told me as much:
Her lips, which were usually so busy flapping that I could not have
told you the shape of her mouth to save myself, were compressed
into a tight line.

"I gather you wish me to, um, go and speak with them? With
Patrick and Frances?" I removed the black sweater I'd worn in the
auto and hung it on the clothes tree. "Is anything wrong, Edna?
Anything you want to tell me first?"

She crooked her finger at me, a come-hither motion, and raised
her face toward mine as I bent down. "He's got her hypnotized,"
Edna said softly, her voice tight with disapproval, "only he don't
call it that. Calls it something else. She's in his power, poor
woman. I may not know much but I know that when I see it, and I
know it's dangerous for a woman to be in somebody's power. So I
didn't let them use that little office you said they could use,
where he could shut the door and do . . . things as shouldn't be
done! I put them in the kitchen and that's that." One emphatic nod
of the head punctuated her statement.