in Paris and had dinner with Zoltan Kertezsi, and in the morning drove to Les Forêts, and told
Emily Chattersworth as much of their story as was permitted. In the afternoon they set out for
Calais, place of bitter memories forevermore. They took the night ferry, drove through England
in the loveliest of all months, and arrived at the Dorchester Hotel amid the gayest of all seasons.
VII
Sir Vincent Caillard, pronounced French-fashion, Ky-yahr, had been one of Zaharoff's
associates from the early days when they had bought Vickers; in the course of the years he had
become one of the richest men in England. Also, strangely enough, he had been a poet, and had
set Blake's
with a huge block of Vickers shares. So it had come about that an elderly, gray-haired lady,
rather small, pale, and insignificant-looking, wielded power in London, and concentrated upon
herself the attention of a swarm of eccentric persons, some of them genuine idealists, more of
them genuine crooks.
She had purchased a large stone church in West Halkin Street and made it over into one of
the strangest homes ever conceived by woman. The gallery of the church had been
continued all around it and divided into bedrooms and bathrooms. The organ had been
retained, and when it was played all the partitions of the rooms seemed to throb. On the ground
floor was a grand reception room with art treasures fit for a museum; among them was a
splendid collection of clocks; a large one struck the quarter-hours, and the front of the clock
opened and a gold and ivory bird came out and sang lustily. Lady Caillard also collected scissors.
Whoever came to that home was at once presented with a copy of the late husband's poems, also a
copy of her ladyship's pamphlet entitled:
you could devise a new kind of praise for either of these volumes it would be equivalent to a
meal-ticket for the rest of your life—or, at any rate, of Lady Caillard's life.
Mr. and Mrs. Dingle and Madame Zyszynski were comfortably ensconced in this former house
of God, and Beauty had had time to collect all the delicious gossip concerning its affairs. Pausing
only for a tribute of grief to Freddi, she opened up to her son a truly thrilling line of
conversation. Lady Caillard had become a convert to spiritualism, and now lived as completely
surrounded by angels and ministers of grace as William Blake in his most mystical hours. She
maintained a troop of mediums, and one of the spirits had directed the invention of a machine
called the "Communigraph," whereby Sir Vincent, called "Vinny," could send messages to his
wife, called "Birdie." The machine had been set up in "The Belfry," as this home was called, and
had been blessed by Archdeacon Wilberforce in a regular service; thereafter the seance room,
known as the "Upper Room," was kept sacred to this one purpose, and at a regular hour every
Wednesday evening Sir Vincent gave his wife a communication which he signed V.B.X., meaning
"Vinnie, Birdie, and a Kiss." These messages were now being compiled into a book entitled
But, alas, love did not rule unchallenged in these twice-consecrated premises. There was a new
favorite among the mediums, a woman whom the others all hated. Beauty's voice fell to a
whisper as she revealed what huge sums of money this woman had been getting, and how she
had persuaded her ladyship to bequeath her vast fortune to the cause of spiritualism, with the
spirits to control it. Lady Caillard's two children, lacking faith in the other world, wanted their
father's money for themselves, and had quarreled with their mother and been ousted from her
home; they had got lawyers, and had even called in Scotland Yard, which couldn't help. There
was the most awful pother going on!
Into this seething caldron of jealousies and hatreds had come Mabel Blackless, alias Beauty
Budd, alias Madame Detaze, alias Mrs. Dingle, herself an object of many kinds of suspicion; also
her husband, teaching and practicing love for all mankind, including both adventuresses and
defrauded children; also a Polish woman medium with an unspellable name. Beauty, of course,
was looked upon as an interloper and intriguer, Parsifal Dingle's love was hypocrisy, and
Madame's mediumship was an effort to supplant the other possessors of this mysterious gift.
Beauty was as much pleased over all this as a child at a movie melodrama. Her tongue tripped
over itself as she poured out the exciting details. "Really, my dears, I wouldn't be surprised if
somebody tried to poison us!" Her manner gave the impression that she would find that a
delightful adventure.
One of the guests in this strange ex-church was the Grand Officer of the Legion d'Honneur
and Knight Commander of the Bath. He appeared to be failing; his skin had become yellowish
