Later, when Hoskins made his reports, both of these utterly conflicting statements continued to be true.
There was no reason why Peters should be dead. Yet dead he was. If the enigmatic lights we had
observed had anything to do with his death, they left no traces. His organs were perfect, all else as it
should have been; he was, indeed, an extraordinarily healthy specimen. Nor had Hoskins been able to
capture any more of the light-carrying corpuscles after I had left him.
That night I framed a short letter describing briefly the symptoms observed in Peters' case, not dwelling
upon the changes in expression but referring cautiously to "unusual grimaces" and a "look of intense fear."
Braile and I had this manifold and mailed to every physician in Greater New York. I personally attended
to a quiet inquiry to the same effect among the hospitals. The letters asked if the physicians had treated
any patients with similar symptoms, and if so to give particulars, names, addresses, occupations and any