The Dark Circle in Royal Crescent
Madame Iris Delacroix, the most celebrated medium in the West Country, was bound into her curtained cabinet at a quarter to nine and promised the spirits would speak. Four sitters joined hands around the table and the gas was lowered. For twenty minutes there were raps, a floating trumpet and one long moan from behind the curtain. When the lamps were turned up, Madame was dead in her chair with a steel hatpin through her heart, and nobody in the circle had let go of anybody's hand. Or so they all swear.