He heartily approved of my course in enlisting the aid of Miss Clarke and her colleagues. “That is the sort of thing you need! People with mentality; plenty of intellectual force!” And he went on to make suggestions.
As a result, within an hour and a half our house was sheltering five more persons.
Miss Clarke has already been introduced. She was easily one of the ten most advanced practitioners in her line. And she had the advantage of a curiosity that was interested in everything odd, even though she labelled it “non-existent.” She said it helped her faith in the real truths to be conversant with the unreal.
Dr. Malloy was from the university, an out-and-out materialist, a psychologist who made life interesting for those who agreed with William James. His investigations of abnormal psychology are world-acknowledged.
Mme. Le Fabre, we afterwards learned, had come from Versailles especially to investigate the matter that was bothering us. She possessed no mediumistic properties of her own but was a staunch proponent of spiritualism, believing firmly in immortality and the omnipotence of “translated” souls.
Professor Herold is most widely known as the inventor of certain apparatus connected with wireless. But he is also considered the West's most advanced student of electrical and radio-active subjects.
I was enormously glad to have this man's expert, high-tension knowledge right on tap.
The remaining member of the quintet which Sir Henry advised me to summon requires a little explanation. Also, I am obliged to give him a name not his own; for it is not often that brigadier-generals of the United States army can openly lend their names to anything so far removed apparently from militarism as the searching of the occult.
Yet we knew that this man possessed a power that few scientists have developed; the power of co-ordination, of handling and balancing great facts and forces, and of deciding promptly how best to meet any given situation. Not that we looked for anything militaristic out of the Blind Spot; far from it. We merely knew not what to expect, which was exactly why we wanted to have him with us; his type of mind is, perhaps, the most solidly comforting sort that any mystery-bound person can have at his side.
By the time these five had gathered, Jerome had neither returned nor telephoned. There was not the slightest trace of Rhamda Avec; no guessing as to whether he had seen the ad. It was then one o'clock in the afternoon. Only six hours ago! It doesn't seem possible.