"Well then," said he, "try to find for me a thing which has no particular market value, but which I laid great store by, because it belonged to my deceased wife. I had a little packet of laces that she was very fond of, and I can't put my hand on it."
The Unknown wrote, "It is in the middle drawer of the secretary in the chamber, behind a package of visiting cards."
My cousin wrote to his servant at Beaune, without giving her any hint of our experiment, "Send by post a little packet which you will find in [such a place] behind a package of visiting cards."
The laces arrived by return mail.
You will notice, my dear sir, that, during the experiments, I was by no means asleep or in a state of trance, and that I was conversing in my usual manner.
5. One of my childhood friends, M. Laloge, at the present time a dealer in coffees and chocolates at Saint-Etienne (Loire), had had as his professor, as well as I, an excellent man whom we most highly esteemed, and who was named Thollon.[77]
M. Thollon, after having directed the education of the children of the Prince of Oldenburg, uncle of the present emperor of Russia, had returned to France and entered the Nice Observatory.
We had the misfortune to lose him shortly after. Laloge had a photograph of him but had lost it. He came and begged me to try to find it. The Unknown wrote, "The photograph is in the upper drawer of the secretary in the chamber."
Laloge had two rooms,—one which he called the "salon," and another called the "chamber."
"There is some mistake," said he. "I have turned everything topsy-turvy in the place you mention and have found nothing."