Alan smiled wryly. "I threw him out once—a snaky sort of fellow. We want none of him—do we, sister?"
"No," she said. "Tell Edward about Dr. Turber's life—father's theory."
"It wouldn't mean much to you, Ed. There were things—so father thought—of mystery about this Turber. Things inexplicable. His curious, unexplained absences from the hospital. Things about him which father sensed. And the searchlight, that for no apparent reason for years now has been occasionally flashing from the hospital roof. It marks Turber's absence, I know that much."
"And Turber's assistant," said Nanette. "That Indian—whatever he is—at the hospital."
"Yes. He, too. Father pieced it together into a very strange, half-formed theory. I have always thought it must have been born of father's dislike for the fellow. And father told it to me the morning of his death. That, too, I felt, must have colored it. Father's mind, there at the last, roaming a little—not quite clear. But this, Ed—this morning—these visions of ours—we saw them, you know, we can't deny that. They seem vaguely, to fit. Oh, there's no use theorizing—not yet. That girl we saw—"
Upon the girl it hinged, of course. The vision was gone. And at best it was only a vision. But the girl might be real—here in 1945.
We did not report what we had seen to the police. Perhaps we had fancied that a girl came out of a phantom tower in Central Park this morning. And, if we had seen it on the television, even so, it might not actually have happened.
Had there actually been a policeman, there in the park, who had seen it? And was there existing, here in New York today, this girl of the shadows?
We waited, and the thing turned tangible indeed! Became a reality, for presently we learned that it had touched others than ourselves.
The early afternoon papers carried a small item. Some of them put it on the front page. But it was only a joke—a little thing to read, to laugh at, and forget. There had been in actuality, a policeman at dawn in Central Park; and he had been less reticent, more incautious than ourselves. He had told what he saw. And the newspapers wrote it: