The Man Who Sees Ghosts Read Free Page A

uniform and gave out that he was a captain. It was decided to spend the entire evening there and then travel home by torchlight. At table the conversation was lively and the Prince could not refrain from relating the incident with the key, which excited general wonderment. The matter was hotly argued over. Most of the company boldly contended that all these magic arts amounted to mere sleight of hand; the abbot, who was already well in his cups, challenged the whole world of spirits to come of their hiding-places; the Englishman uttered blasphemies, while the musician crossed himself to ward off the devil. A few, among whom the Prince numbered, were of the opinion that one should reserve judgement on such matters; meanwhile the Russian officer conversed with the ladies and seemed to take no interest in the conversation. In the heat of the argument no-one had noticed the Sicilian leave. Not half an hour had passed when he returned wrapped in a coat and placed himself behind the chair of the Frenchman. “You were bold enough earlier to want to take on all the spirits—would you like to try your hand with one?”
    “Done!” said the abbot—“if you are willing to take it upon yourself to produce one for me.”
    “I am,” replied the Sicilian, turning towards us, “when these ladies and gentlemen have left.”
    “Why so?” cried the Englishman. “A plucky spirit is not afraid of good company.”
    “I cannot vouch for the outcome,” said the Sicilian.
    “For Heaven’s sake, no!” shrieked the ladies at the table, starting up from their chairs in alarm.
    “Let it come, this spirit of yours,” said the abbot, defiantly, turning to one of the guests and asking him for his dagger, “but warn it in advance that we have some sharp blades here.”
    “You may do as you see fit,” the Sicilian replied coldly, “if later you should feel so prompted.” He then turned to the Prince: “You have maintained, my lord, that your key passed through the hands of some stranger—can you divine who that was?”
    “No.”
    “And there is no-one you could guess at?”
    “I did have one thought, I admit—”
    “Would you recognise this person, if you saw him before you?”
    “Most certainly.”
    At this the Sicilian threw back his cloak and drew out a mirror which he held before the Prince’s eyes.
    “Is this the man?”
    The Prince recoiled in fright.
    “What did you see?” I asked him.
    “The Armenian.”
    The Sicilian hid the mirror back beneath his cloak.
    “Was it the same person you imagined?” the whole assembly asked the Prince.
    “The very same.”
    A change of expression came over every face at this and the laughter ceased. All eyes were fixed intently on the Sicilian.
    “Monsieur l’Abbé, things are getting serious,” said the Englishman; “I would advise you to consider sounding the retreat.”
    “The fellow’s possessed!” the Frenchman shouted and ran out of the house; the women rushed out of the room, shrieking, with the virtuoso hard on their heels; the German canon was snoring in an armchair, while the Russian remained sitting nonchalantly as before.
    “Perhaps all you want is to make a laughing stock of a braggart,” the Prince resumed after these others had left, “or are you indeed willing to keep to your word?”
    “It is true,” said the Sicilian, “that in respect of the abbot I was not in earnest: I only made the proposition to him because I knew the coward would not take me at my word.—But the matter itself is too serious to be merely the means of playing a joke.”
    “So you will allow then that it is in your power?”
    The magician was silent for a long time and appeared to be examining the Prince carefully.
    “Yes,” he said finally.
    The Prince’s curiosity was already close to breaking point. In former times, making contact with the spirit world had been a subject he had enthused about more than any other and, since the first appearance of the Armenian, all those