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with his right hand.
    Mrs. Jencken made a faint, involuntary sound of horror as he did.
    Home’s movement did not waver. With his hand, he lifted up a red-hot coal the size of an orange.
    Mr. Saal mumbled,
“Oh.”
    Home carried the glowing coal around the room, showing it to the group. Each reacted similarly, wincing and drawing back from its radiant heat.
    After all of them had looked at it, the Scotsman returned to the hearth and dropped the coal back onto the fire.
    He moved around the group again, showing them the palm of his right hand.
    It was not scorched or burned. No skin was red or blackened. The palm appeared completely normal.
    “So,” Home said.
    Returning to the fire, he knelt before it and began to stir the embers into flame again.
    This time he used his hands to do so, causing Mrs. Jencken to emit the sound of horror once again, now more loudly.
    “He’s quite all right,” Lord Adare assured her softly.
    Despite his words, Mr. Jencken gasped as Home bent forward and placed his face among the burning coals. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
    “Steady,” Lord Adare told her.
    She gaped at the Scotsman. He was moving his face in the glowing coals as though bathing his face in comfortable water.
    After several moments, he straightened up and they could see that his face was unaffected.
    Reaching into the fire, he picked up the same large coal he’d previously handled. He stood and returned to the group, raising the coal toward his lips to blow on it and make it glow more brightly.
    Mrs. Jencken put a hand across her eyes, unable to watch.
    “I want to see which of you will be the best subject,” Home said. “Ah! Adare will be the easiest because he has been the most with Dan.”
    “Why does he say that?” Mrs. Jencken whispered to her husband.
    “His
Control
is speaking, not Mr. Home himself,” he whispered back.
    He stood on impulse as Lord Adare approached the Scotsman. “Put it in mine,” he said.
    His wife caught her breath, lowering her hand to look at him in shock.
    “No, no, touch it and see,” Home told him, stepping over to his host.
    Jencken reached out gingerly and touched the coal for an instant, hissing with pain. Immediately, he placed the finger tip into his mouth to wet it. In moments, he would have a large blister there.
    “Now you,” said Home, holding the coal to within four inches of Mr. Saal’s hand. Mr. Saal pulled his hand back automatically.
    “Now you,” Home said to Mr. Hurt, holding the coal a similar distance from his hand.
    Mr. Hurt reacted in the same way, flinching and withdrawing his hand quickly.
    Home turned to Lord Adare who was standing by him now.
    “If you are not afraid,” he said, “hold out your hand.”
    Obediently, Adare extended his right hand, palm up.
    Using his left hand, Home made two rapid passes over the extended hand, then placed the burning coal in Lord Adare’s palm.
    “Good lord,” Adare murmured. He stared at the coal in awe. “It feels scarcely warm,” he said.
    Home chuckled and picked the coal off his friend’s palm. Carrying it back to the hearth, he dropped it onto the fire.
    They all began to speak at once but Home restrained them with a sudden gesture, telling them, “The spirits are arranging something special. Do not be afraid and,
on no account
, leave your places.”
    Moving quickly to the window, he unlocked and raised it all the way. Mrs. Jencken shivered as the cold night wind came blowing in, billowing the curtains.
    Home walked out of the room. In the adjoining study, they heard him opening another window.
    Several moments passed.
    Then Mrs. Jencken gasped and her husband said, “
Oh, my
,” his tone almost childlike.
    Home was outside the window of the sitting room.
    Standing upright in the air, seventy feet above the street.
    With a smile, he “walked” into the room, bending over slightly to pass through the open window. Re-closing the window, he dropped into a chair and laughed.
    “If a policeman had been