The lithe creature of the rock was snapping a smaller branch from the broken large one when Reilly, duty prevailing, began a dash up by the path which carried him briefly away from where he could see the rock. It was during that trifling interlude that Reilly proved himself a man of determination, unwilling to abandon whatever course he had begun.
For from the crag that overhung the pool, the spot that Reilly could not see, yet could locate by the direction of the sound, there came the certifying token of the banshee, a weird, rising wail that ended in a harrowing scream.
Hardly had the cry ended before the hurrying patrolman was above the slope, blowing his whistle as he arrived. Shouts came from across the pool as persons reached the rustic bridge and pointed excitedly to the overhanging rock in proof that they, too, had heard the unearthly wail.
Then Reilly was stock-still again, still trilling the alarm and beckoning to other persons who appeared along paths well down the flanks of the slope. Cars were stopping on a drive below, even two riders on a distant bridle path halted their quivering horses, as the steeds whinnied terrified answers to the trailing scream.
From further away came the rising siren of a patrol car, responding to Reilly’s call, but it seemed like something from another world. For the world in which Officer Reilly now stood could well be termed unearthly in itself.
Reilly was on the very crag where he had seen the beauteous maiden with the flowing hair; on every side were witnesses who could not only testify that they too had glimpsed the ethereal creature, but were placed where they could cut off all parts of escape.
Yet like the banshee that she represented, the spectral visitant was gone. The only proof that such a creature could have been here was a broken branch from a lilac tree that rustled lightly overhead.
Though Reilly did not notice it at this moment, that lilac branch was not intact. It lacked a twig that had been snapped from it as rudely as the branch itself had been wrested from the tree!
MADAME MATHILDA responded well to the aromatic spirits of ammonia. In fact they were the only spirits that had actually appeared in the seance room.
Nevertheless the scene was not without a trace of mystery.
Just before she had passed out with a horrible wail, the medium had shrieked something about objects representing life and death. Those items were on exhibit in the light that now filled the parlor. They were lying in the very middle of the room, the things that Madame Mathilda had named: a sprig of lilac and a dagger.
Commissioner Weston took the case in hand. That was, he took Madame Mathilda in hand, by planting a hard hand upon her shoulder and shaking her to her feet despite the protests of the faithful clients who surrounded their poor medium.
Announcing himself in a tone of final authority, the commissioner started to declare that the medium was under arrest for producing fraudulent materializations, only to find himself interrupted by a timid-looking client who suddenly became vociferous.
“Those aren’t materializations!” the man argued. “They are apports. You have no case against this medium, commissioner.”
The term “apports” rather stumped Weston until Cranston intervened in his calm style.
“This gentleman is right, commissioner,” declared Cranston. “A materialization is the partial or complete production of an actual spirit form. The mere arrival of an object in a seance room is called an apport, particularly when the object is inanimate.”
The distinction didn’t quite satisfy Weston.
“These things were materialized,” stormed the commissioner, gesturing to the knife and the sprig of lilac. “Of course the medium faked it, but she claims the objects came from the spirit land.”
It was Madame Mathilda now who was interrupting with emphatic headshakes. Somehow she couldn’t find the voice which had been so rampant only recently.
“You are wrong, commissioner,” continued Cranston, patiently. “These are obviously material objects which can be traced to a natural source. The twig for instance has been broken from a lilac tree quite recently; we may discover that the dagger belongs in some museum.
“True the medium may claim that they were brought here by spirit forces” - Cranston was glancing at Madame Mathilda, who halted her head shake and began to nod - “which certain scientists might decide to be evidence of some fourth dimensional activities. Outright skeptics might class the whole matter as a fraud, but it was not the sort that you came here to uncover, commissioner. You hoped to witness a materialization, but you saw none.”
Before Weston could reply, another person entered the argument. This was another of the medium’s clients, a gray-haired woman whose very vigor belied the term elderly. She was the person who had gasped the strange words when the medium talked of seeing a figure on a rock.
“Perhaps you have heard of me, commissioner.” The woman spoke with a hauteur that suited her tall and somewhat portly stature. “I am Sylvia Selmore, one of the very people whose affairs you are trying to protect by meddling into them!”
Weston acknowledged the introduction with a bow. He had often heard of Sylvia Selmore, former lecturer, writer, champion of peace and reform, as well as being generally eccentric and wealthy enough to continue so.
“There was a materialization,” Miss Selmore insisted. “I witnessed it along with the medium!”
At that, Madame Mathilda sank back with an unhappy gasp that called for more spirits of ammonia. To give the medium air, Cranston tugged away the blackout curtain covering the courtyard window, then opened the window itself. The darkness of the court was complete, with no trace of that distant light which had blinked the curious signal.
Yet at that moment, Cranston wouldn’t have wanted the blinks to recur.
Thanks to the darkness, Cranston was viewing something closer and better. The blackness of the window pane gave it the quality of a mirror in which he observed Madame Mathilda. All eyes had turned toward Cranston, therefore the medium relaxed in unguarded style.
Reflected by the lights of the room, Mathilda’s face revealed not only the opening of her shrewd eyes, but the satisfied smile that crept across her lips. Sole witness of the medium’s minor triumph, Cranston recognized the reason for it. Madame Mathilda was erroneously assuming that the clue of the dangling curtain now was gone. She didn’t guess that it remained in the memory of the very person who had destroyed it, Lamont Cranston, otherwise The Shadow!
Now attention was back upon Mathilda, so her eyes were closed again. Moaning feebly, the medium began to recuperate in slow, well-rehearsed style. Coming completely from her fake trance, she stared wonderingly at the faces about her, as though to ask what had happened.
Portly Miss Sylvia Selmore rallied to the medium’s aid.
“Poor dear,” expressed Sylvia, referring to Mathilda, “she can’t remember a thing that happened. She was in a trance you know and everything she saw was a clairvoyant phenomenon.”
Angrily, Weston drew himself up to say something, then switched to a brusque-mannered silence, his broad face glowering to a degree that seemed to bristle his short-clipped military mustache.
“She heard things too,” continued Sylvia, “because she is clairaudient. Then the spirit itself controlled her and spoke through the medium’s voice.”
Miss Sylvia nodded as though she knew all about such phenomena, but her theory didn’t help solve the question as to whether or not there had been an actual materialization, the thing that the law wanted to witness.
It was Inspector Joe Cardona, a swarthy, stocky individual who brought up that point. So far Cardona had been a good listener; now he proved himself a good talker. Facing Miss Sylvia, Cardona put a blunt query: