Martin lived about fifteen minutes out of town by taxi. I took with me my chief assistant, James Collins, so I would have a witness if anything of a psychic nature occurred. Collins had my camera as I wanted at least to get a picture of Martin. We found him standing in the doorway of a rear building and after I introduced myself he seemed cordial. I showed him some Spirit photographs which I had with me and after a few minutes talk I asked him if he was willing that Collins should take a snap-shot at us. He thought I was asking for a sitting and replied that he did not feel good and besides had been engaged to take the pictures of the children in two schools. I kept on talking in my most entertaining manner and before long he invited us into the house saying he would photograph both of us. Meanwhile Collins had secured five snap-shots at close range without Martin knowing it.
When we went into the house I walked right into the dark room but Martin called me saying:
“Now don’t you go in there, just wait a minute.”
While we waited outside Martin spent about eight minutes in the dark room. Then he came out and we went into his studio, a simple room with a black background. He had me sit down and placed Collins behind me on my right. As a test I told Collins to step over to the other side as it might look better. Then when he had done so I turned to Martin and asked:
“Is that all right or is it better to have him take the original position?”
“I think it would be nicer if he stood where he was in the first place,” Martin replied.
This led me to think he was keeping that side of the plate clean for something to appear. There was considerable light in the room and Martin pulled a dark screen on our right explaining that he did not need much light for the psychic stuff, then putting a shade on his eyes he turned to us and said:
“Now keep quiet and I will try and do something.”
When he uncovered the lens I counted the time of the exposure which was about fifteen seconds. As he covered it again he said to us:
