The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [4653]
"Now make your mind a blank!" she commanded her factotum.
"You just said I haven't got any mind," complained the latter.
"Well;" said Miss Cornelia magnificently, "make what you haven't got a blank."
The repartee silenced Lizzie for the moment, but only for the moment. As soon as Miss Cornelia had settled herself comfortably and tried to make her mind a suitable receiving station for ouija messages, Lizzie began to mumble the sorrows of her heart.
"I've stood by you through thick and thin," she mourned in a low voice. "I stood by you when you were a vegetarian--I stood by you when you were a theosophist--and I seen you through socialism, Fletcherism and rheumatism--but when it comes to carrying on with ghosts--"
"Be still!" ordered Miss Cornelia. "Nothing will come if you keep chattering!"
"That's why I'm chattering!" said Lizzie, driven to the wall. "My teeth are, too," she added. "I can hardly keep my upper set in," and a desolate clicking of artificial molars attested the truth of the remark. Then, to Miss Cornelia's relief, she was silent for nearly two minutes, only to start so violently at the end of the time that she nearly upset the ouija-board on her mistress's toes.
"I've got a queer feeling in my fingers--all the way up my arms," she whispered in awed accents, wriggling the arms she spoke of violently.
"Hush!" said Miss Cornelia indignantly. Lizzie always exaggerated, of course--yet now her own fingers felt prickly, uncanny. There was a little pause while both sat tense, staring at the board.
"Now, Ouija," said Miss Cornelia defiantly, "is Lizzie Allen right about this house or is it all stuff and nonsense?"
For one second--two--the ouija remained anchored to its resting place in the center of the board, Then--
"My Gawd! It's moving!" said Lizzie in tones of pure horror as the little pointer began to wander among the letters.
"You shoved it!"
"I did not--cross my heart, Miss Neily--I--" Lizzie's eyes were round, her fingers glued rigidly and awkwardly to the ouija. As the movements of the pointer grew more rapid her mouth dropped open--wider and wider--prepared for an ear-piercing scream.
"Keep quiet!" said Miss Cornelia tensely. There was a pause of a few seconds while the pointer darted from one letter to another wildly.
"B--M--C--X--P--R--S--K--Z--" murmured Miss Cornelia trying to follow the spelled letters.
"It's Russian!" gasped Lizzie breathlessly and Miss Cornelia nearly disgraced herself in the eyes of any spirits that might be present by inappropriate laughter. The ouija continued to move--more letters--what was it spelling?--it couldn't be--good heavens-- "B--A--T--Bat!" said Miss Cornelia with a tiny catch in her voice.
The pointer stopped moving: She took her hands from the board.
"That's queer," she said with a forced laugh. She glanced at Lizzie to see how Lizzie was taking it. But the latter seemed too relieved to have her hands off the ouija-board to make the mental connection that her mistress had feared.
All she said was, "Bats indeed! That shows it's spirits. There's been a bat flying around this house all evening."
She got up from her chair tentatively, obviously hoping that the seance was over.
"Oh, Miss Neily," she burst out. "Please let me sleep in your room tonight! It's only when my jaw drops that I snore--I can tie it up with a handkerchief!"
"I wish you'd tie it up with a handkerchief now," said her mistress absent-mindedly, still pondering the message that the pointer had spelled. "B--A--T--Bat!" she murmured. Thought-transference-- warning--accident? Whatever it was, it was--nerve-shaking. She put the ouija-board aside. Accident or not, she was done with it for the evening. But she could not so easily dispose of the Bat. Sending a protesting Lizzie off for her reading glasses, Miss Cornelia got the evening paper and settled down to what by now had become her obsession.