Rap! -
Suddenly came a wild scream. It was such a scream as I had never
heard before in my life. It came as though a dagger had been
thrust into the heart of Mrs. Popper. The lights flashed up as
Kennedy turned the switch.
A man was lying flat on the floor--it was Inspector O'Connor. He
had succeeded in slipping noiselessly, like a snake, below the
curtain into the cabinet. Craig had told him to look out for
wires or threads stretched from Mrs. Popper's clothing to the
bulging curtain of the cabinet. Imagine his surprise when he saw
that she had simply freed her foot from the shoe, which I was
carefully holding down, and with a backward movement of the leg
was reaching out into the cabinet behind her chair and was doing
the rapping with her toes.
Lying on the floor he had grasped her foot and caught her heel
with a firm hand. She had responded with a wild yell that showed
she knew she was trapped. Her secret was out.
Hysterically Mrs. Popper began to upbraid the inspector as he
rose to his feet, but Farrington quickly interposed.
"Something was working against us to-night, gentlemen. Yet you
demanded results. And when the spirits will not come, what is she
to do? She forgets herself in her trance; she produces, herself,
the things that you all could see supernaturally if you were in
sympathy.
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