“But, doctor, I am not interested in spiritistic phenomena.”
“Eh? Not interested? I’m afraid I don’t—”
“I have always feared and detested the very thought of meeting or communicating with the disembodied spirits.”
“Really, Miss Van Loan, you surprise me,” said the doctor. “Your uncle, up to the very time of his death, was an ardent supporter of the spiritistic hypothesis. I have had many a private debate with him on the subject.”
“I am aware of that. I, too, have argued the subject with him when it was forced on me. Until three days ago I was as firm an unbeliever as you. But now—I don’t know what to think. It seems that my uncle, even in death, has resolved to force his belief upon me.”
“You mean that he has appeared to you?”
“I’m not sure, but strange things—terrible, enervating things—have happened since I began to carry out the provisions of my uncle’s will.”
“He left his entire fortune to you, did he not?”
“Yes, but with a provision which I am afraid I won’t be able to carry out. He stipulated that I must live in his old home in Highland Park continuously for one year, and that if I should fail to do so everything would revert to my cousin, Ernest Hegel, or in the event of his failure to carry out the provision, to the Society for Psychical Research.”
“Your uncle was reputed to be quite wealthy.”