"You mean he held séances?" Chris asked Mrs. Perrin.

"Well, yes," she answered. "He was very, very famous in the nineteenth century. In fact, he was probably the only spiritualist of his time who wasn't ever clearly convicted of fraud." "As I said, he wasn't a Jesuit," commented the dean.

"Oh, my, but was he!" She laughed.: "When he turned twenty-two, he joined the Jesuits and promised not to work anymore as a medium, but they threw him out of France"--- she laughed even harder--- "right after a séance that he held at the Tuileries. Do you know what he did? In the middle of the séance he told the empress she was about to be touched by the hands of a spirit child who was about to fully materialize, and when they suddenly turned all of the lights on"--- she guffawed--- "they caught him sitting with his naked foot on the empress' arm! Now, can you imagine?"

The Jesuit was smiling as he set down his plate.

"Don't come looking for discounts anymore on indulgences, Mary Jo."

"Oh, come on, every family's got one black sheep."

"We were pushing our quota with the Medici popes."

"Y'know, I had an experience once," began Chris."

But the dean interrupted. "Are you making this a matter of confession?"

Chris smiled and said, "No, I'm not a Catholic."

"Oh, well, neither are the Jesuits." Mrs. Perrin chuckled.

"Dominican slander," retorted the dean. Then to Chris he said, "I'm sorry, my dear. You were saying?''

"Well, just that I thought I saw somebody levitate once. In Bhutan." She recounted the story.

"Do you think that's possible?" she ended. "I mean, really, seriously."

"Who knows?" He shrugged. "Who knows what gravity is. Or matter, when it comes to that."

"Would you like my opinion?" interjected Mrs. Perrin. The dean said, "No, Mary Jo; I've taken a vow of poverty." "So have I," Chris muttered.

"What was that?" asked the dean, leaning forward.

'"Oh, nothing. Say, there's something I've been meaning to ask you. Do you know that little cottage that's back of the church over there?" She pointed in the general direction.

"Holy Trinity?" he asked.

"Yes, right. Well, what goes on in there?"

"Oh, well, that's where they say Black Mass," said Mrs. Perrin.

"Black who?"

"Black Mass."

"What's that?"

"She's kidding," said the dean.

"Yes, I know," said Chris, "but I'm dumb. I mean, What's a Black Mass?"

"Oh, basically, it's a travesty on the Catholic Mass," explained the dean. "It's connected to witchcraft. Devil worship."

"Really? You mean, there really is such a thing?"

"I really couldn't say. Although I heard a statistic once about something like possibly fifty thousand Black Masses being said every year in the city of Paris." "You mean now?"

marveled Chris.

"It's just something I heard."

"Yes, of course, from the Jesuit secret service," twitted Mrs. Perrin.

"Not at all. I hear voices," responded the dean.

"You know, back in L.A.," mentioned Chris, "you hear an awful lot of stories about witch cults being around. I've often wondered if it's true."

"Well, as I said, I wouldn't know," said the dean. "But I'll tell you who might--- Joe Dyer.

Where's Joe?"

The dean looked around.

"Oh, over there," he said, nodding toward the other priest, who was standing at the buffet with his back to them. He was heaping a second helping onto his plate. "Hey, Joe?"

The young priest turned, his face impassive.. "You called, great dean?" The other Jesuit beckoned with his fingers.

"All right, just a second," answered Dyer, and resumed his attack on the curry and salad.

"That's the only leprechaum in the priesthood," said the dean with an edge of fondness. He sipped at his wine. "They had a couple of cases of desecration in Holy Trinity last week, and Joe said something about one of them reminding him of some things they used to do at Black Mass, so I expect he knows something about the subject." "What happened at the church?" asked Mary Jo Perrin.

"Oh, it's really too disgusting," said the dean.

"Come on, we're all through with our dinners."

"No, please. It's too much," he demurred.

"Oh, come on!"

"You mean you can't read my mind, Mary Jo?" he asked her.

"Oh, I could," she responded, "but I really don't think that I'm worthy to enter that Holy of Holies!" She chuckled.

"Well, it really is sick," began the dean.

He described the desecrations. In the first of the incidents, the elderly sacristan of the church had discovered a mound of human excrement on the altar cloth directly before the tabernacle.

"Oh, that really is sick." Mrs. Perrin grimaced.