story like that to the average jury. Of course, if need be, I shall have experts, the very best experts, to substantiate it. But the prosecution will have other experts, experts who will be just as good, to deny the possibility of any such thing. In that event it will be only a pleasure to mix them up a bit and to show by their own testimony that they know no more than the law—I don’t say allows but—pays them for. Do you mind if I smoke?”
They were seated in the sombre parlor in Irving Place. Meditatively Orr lit a cigarette. Meditatively Sylvia contemplated him.
“Would it not be better,” she presently asked, “to show that Loftus committed suicide?”
“Yes, in the event that the pistol is found. It is rather late, though, for that.”
Sylvia bent forward. “Melanchthon,” she said, “I have heard you say—have I not—that everything is possible?”
“Indeed you have and you will hear me again.”
“Then why not ask Miranda?”
Orr looked about for a cendrier ; finding one he put his cigarette in it. “You mean the medium. Do you know, I would in a minute, were it not that it will be a long time, perhaps years, before she or any other spook could call Loftus up. When a man is snuffed out as abruptly as he was, he is so stunned and confused that it is quite a while before he can sufficiently collect his wits to reply to any communications from these latitudes. It is tedious that it should be so. The spirit world needs remodeling. But there you are. By the way, where are you to be this summer?”
Sylvia made a gesture. She did not know. It was then June. Fashion had fled. Fifth Avenue was empty. The town was an oven. In that oven the