Page:The strange experiences of Tina Malone.djvu/50

50 till another word appeared, "friend," and then "grieving" and then "mother," until at last, after covering about twenty sheets, the sentence appeared "The promissory note you have given to your friend is grieving your mother."

I spent nearly the whole afternoon over this, gaping and wondering at my performance.

What a thing!

Tony arrived and asked after "Patrick."

"Well, evidently he's there all right," I said. "I've done automatic writing."

Tony roared.

"But really, Tony—and it's against you," I said.

He became serious then. I knew that would pull him up. He waited, quite anxious and expectant, while I collected the papers and showed him.

He took it seriously. He always had had a belief in the occult but in all the books I had read I had impatiently "skipped" all the parts about "Life after Death" and "The Unknown."

He looked at it all carefully and in silence with a perplexed expression.

"What does it mean?" he asked. "Where's the promissory note?"

I opened my desk and took it out.

Together we examined it but could find nothing there that did not seem quite as it should be.

"Tony! When that sentence had been written I began to ask questions. I thought perhaps mother was really there—and I asked her why it was grieving her. She said to ask my brother. Then I asked her if it was you she was objecting to and she said 'no'—my pen guided the answers 'yes' or 'no'—She had nothing against you but again came the sentence about the 'promissory note.'"

We puzzled together and Tony left, far more serious than he came.

He was going away to go through people's libraries in the country and buy what books he wanted. He left his address and made me promise to let him know very often how I was.

"You leave Patrick alone," he said. "Tell him to go to the Devil. What does he know about promissory notes. Don't have anything to do with spirits, Tina—let them rest in peace."

"But I don't," I said. "They come—I don't want them."

The next day as I was going into town I met Sybil.

She was the sort of person, like all the other occultists, who liked to bow to you or not, just as she was in the mood, and I just nodded and stood away from her, waiting for the tram to come up.