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Updated: June 12, 2025
Madame d'Elphis stopped speaking. Vanderlyn stared at her with a sense of growing excitement and amazement; he was telling himself that this woman undoubtedly possessed the power of reading not only the minds, but even the emotional memories, of those who came to consult her.... Yes, it was true; his last parting with his mother had been out of doors, in the garden of their own family house on the shores of Lake Champlain.
It is important that this should be thoroughly understood by you, for to-morrow you will be called upon to testify to the fact." Madame d'Elphis stiffened into deep attention. "To-morrow morning," continued Vanderlyn, very deliberately, "one of your regular clients is coming to ask you to assist him to solve a terrible mystery. I will tell you his name it is Mr. Pargeter, the well-known sportsman.
Vanderlyn, and I will tell you of a case in which La d'Elphis was closely concerned a case of which I have absolute knowledge." Madame de Léra went back to her chair; she sank into it, and, with Vanderlyn standing before her, she told him the story.
He conveyed, civilly and clearly, that he was quite prepared to offer a very special fee for the favour he was asking; and he indicated that, though he had been told the usual price of a séance was fifty francs, he the mysterious stranger who was speaking to Madame d'Elphis through the telephone was so exceedingly anxious to be received by her that evening that he would pay a fancy fee, in fact as much as a thousand francs, for the privilege of consulting the famous fortune-teller.
He also realised that his task would not be quite as easy as he had hoped it would be; the manner of La d'Elphis was cold, correct, and ladylike no other word would serve to the point of severity. He saw that he would have to word his offer of a bribe in as least offensive a fashion as was possible.
"My dear aunt," said the young man, chuckling, "the husband qua husband is, I assure you, an unknown animal in that strange underworld of which our beautiful city is the chosen Mecca. No, no, Madame d'Elphis does not waste her time in producing little oracles! If you wish to hear the truth, I mean the whole truth, I will tell it you."
At last, when close to Vanderlyn, he spoke in a low, gruff whisper. "Grid!" he exclaimed, "Grid, old man, don't be shocked! La d'Elphis says that Peggy's dead that she's been dead three days!" Vanderlyn could not speak. He stared dumbly at the other, and as he realised the relief, almost the joy, in Pargeter's voice, there came over him a horrible impulse to strike and then to flee.
"She is whispering to the nun, and I hear her words; she says, 'Poor child, she is young, too young to have died like this, alone. I am having a mass said for her soul to-morrow morning." Madame d'Elphis looked up. Her large eyes, of which the lids were slightly reddened, rested on Vanderlyn's pale, drawn face.
"Yes," he said, "that is true, I was there." "In the lean months," continued Jacques, who did not often find his conversation listened to with such respect and attention as was now the case, "I mean, of course, in the summer poor Florac has to retrench, but La d'Elphis does not remain idle.
"Grid," he said, lowering his voice, "I've been wondering don't you think it would be a good plan if I were to go and see that fortune-teller of mine, Madame d'Elphis? I don't mind telling you that I'd a shot at her yesterday evening, but she was away. She does sometimes make mistakes, but still, she's a kind of Providence to me.
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