Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 62, No. 2, October 3, 1931

On an impulse she went in.

A long, poorly lighted hall led to an equally dimly lit anteroom. Ann nervously wondered what had possessed her to come, but it was too late to back out, for a well-dressed and dapper young man was greeting her with a cheery “Good morning.”

Ann explained that she’d like a consultation. Without asking her name, or any questions, he requested Ann to give him a glove, a handkerchief, or other piece of wearing apparel, as “the Swami gets the answers from the touch of your personality contained in something personal.”

She gave him a handkerchief and he left the room. Returning a few moments later, he stated that the Swami would see her. He paused to warn her that “the Swami is controlled by the Unknown and Unseen,” and must be permitted to talk without interruption after the consultation has started.

He led her into a chamber fitted up as an Oriental temple, or at least what Ann thought an Oriental temple would be.

A huge bronze brazier in one corner of the room, Joss sticks burning at the feet of a prodigious Buddha, an oilcloth roll on which were painted the signs of the Zodiac, a great chart of a nude form, and a picture of a ghost made up the decorations.

In the center of the room was the table without which no seer or fortune teller operates. There were but two chairs in the room, and the assistant waved Ann into one while the Swami took the other.

“Let me have your hand,” he said, as he sat down.

Ann felt repelled at the touch of his fingers, for his hand was dirty, flabby, moist, almost deathlike in its limpness. She was glad when he dropped her fingers after giving them a tight squeeze.

“He that knows all will now speak,” the assistant intoned. “You say nothing.” He left the room.

Alone with this soothsayer with dirty hands, shabby, kimono-like gown and weird manner, Ann doubly regretted coming to see him, but as he began to talk the fear dropped from her, for his deep monotone was soothing, almost hypnotizing.

“My child,” he commenced, “you come to me in doubt about something. You are uncertain about a love affair. You are wondering if you should marry. I receive from this handkerchief of yours certain impulses that tell me to advise you to wed.

“You were married. You are a widow. You should marry again, and soon.

“I see the shoulders of a man who is neither large nor small, neither stout nor thin. He is not over thirty. You have met him only recently, yet he sways your emotions. Take him for your husband. Your own late husband, from the Other World tells me to bid you do this.

“Bring the boy to me if you still doubt. But that is up to you. You, at least, should return for more advice. The fee is five dollars for this reading. Longer readings are ten dollars. No more now, come again.”

As Ann hesitated, stunned by this apparent power of the seer, the assistant came in the room as though called, although Ann did not see the Swami make a move. He ushered Ann from the Swami’s presence, and before she knew it, had collected the five-dollar fee and had escorted her to the outer door.

Ann could hardly wait to reach a pay station to phone Charlie. She was so unnerved that she tried three times before she got the right number. Ann almost shouted into the phone:

“Charlie! I’ve been to a great fortune teller. He says I should marry you and I never said a word about you. He’s wonderful. Get some time off this lunch hour. I will too, and we can meet. I want you to go to him with me.”

Ann didn’t give Charlie time to think. An engagement was made to meet in front of the Swami’s office. Came noon. As Ann saw him come swinging down the street, she ran to greet him. Her eyes gleamed as she told him of her experiences.

Charlie wanted to have lunch before they went to the Swami, but Ann emphatically stated she “just couldn’t eat” now. So they went at once to the seer’s parlors.

Ann told the assistant that they wanted a ten-dollar reading each. Would the Swami receive them together, telling their fortunes together? This couldn’t be done, the assistant replied. “The control only takes each mind and body separately.”

They arranged for Charlie to enter the Swami’s salon first.

When he came out, obviously amazed, Ami threw her arms about him and kissed him.

“Did he say you should marry?” she excitedly asked.

“He sure did, honey,” Charlie replied. “And better than that he described you to a ‘T.’ He must be guided by spirits or something. Now, you go in and see what happens.”

Ann was ushered back into the office. Dirty and queer looking as the Swami was, Ann could have kissed him, she was so happy. Her consultation was a repetition of his earlier advice, but more elaborate. The Swami even predicted that her first child would be a boy.

So Ann and Charlie were married the following week.