That broke up the séance. Miss Burton moved about lighting candles. Her eyes glittered. Blankenhagen knelt by Irma, and the rest of us huddled in a group near the door.

“What did it mean?” George hissed. “That last word?”

“Fire,” said Tony uneasily. “Fire.”

“What fire?” George demanded. “Is she trying to tell us the Schloss is going to burn?”

“How should I know?”

Miss Burton came back to the table.

“Did anyone recognize the language?” she asked briskly.

I gave her a hostile, unbelieving stare, which didn’t disturb her in the slightest, and turned to Blankenhagen.

“How is Irma?”

“She recovers,” the doctor said shortly.

“She will feel no ill effects, except for great weariness,” Miss Burton said complacently. “I have seen deep trance before. My dear Elfrida, how fortunate. You told me the girl was susceptible, but I had no idea!”

The countess hadn’t moved from her chair. She didn’t look at Irma.

“Now, the language,” Miss Burton went on. “A form of German, I believe. Professor Lawrence?”

“Not now!” Tony said angrily.

“Professor Schmidt? Really, this is too important—”

Schmidt was too shaken to argue. I felt a touch of sympathy for the little guy when I saw his twitching face; he was like a man who goes out hunting for a lost pussycat, and meets a tiger. With a despairing shrug he took the paper Miss Burton thrust at him.

“Yes, yes,” he muttered. “It is the early form of modern High German. ‘I am the Gräfin Konstanze von Drachenstein; from the sunny land of Spain I came, to die in this place of cold winters and colder hearts.’”

“Lousy prose,” George said critically.

Schmidt hurried on.

“Then, it is something like this: ‘There is danger everywhere. I cannot rest. I cannot sleep, here in the cold of eternity. Let me see the sun again, let me feel warmth, breathe the air. Give me life. She has so much; let her share life and breath with me. Let me have—’”

The sobbing cry might have been the ghost’s own addition to Schmidt’s translation. It was Irma’s voice, though. Supported by Blankenhagen, she had raised herself to a sitting position. As we turned, guilty and surprised, she slumped back with closed eyes.

“Idiot,” said the doctor furiously. “It is criminal, what you do! To put such insane ideas into the girl’s mind—”

“It is you who are insane, to deny the evidence of your own senses!” Miss Burton was as angry as Blankenhagen. Two febrile spots of color burned on her sallow cheeks. “You heard her; you must know it was not Irma who said those words. Possession by the spirits of the dead is a well-documented fact; only a bigoted scientist would deny—”

“Herr Gott in Himmel,” bellowed Blankenhagen. “Will no one stop that cursed woman’s mouth?”