I am not subject to hallucinations, I had never seen a ghost, I had never wished to, and I was totally ignorant of the ethics governing such a situation. Even had the lady not been so obviously supernatural, I should yet have been at a loss as to how to receive her at this hour in the intimacy of my bedchamber, for no strange lady had ever before invaded its privacy, and I am of Puritan stock.
“It is midnight of the thirteenth,” she said, in a low, musical voice.
“So it is,” I agreed, and then I recalled the letter that I had received on the tenth.
“He left Guadalupe today,” she continued; “he will wait in Guaymas for your letter.”
That was all. She crossed the room and passed out of it, not through the window which was quite convenient, but through the solid wall. I sat there for a full minute, staring at the spot where I had last seen her and endeavoring to convince myself that I was dreaming, but I was not dreaming; I was wide awake. In fact I was so wide awake that it was fully an hour before I had successfully wooed Morpheus, as the Victorian writers so neatly expressed it, ignoring the fact that his sex must have made it rather embarrassing for gentlemen writers.
I reached my office a little earlier than usual the following morning, and it is needless to say that the first thing that I did was to search for that letter which I had received on the tenth. I could recall neither the name of the writer nor the point of origin of the letter, but my secretary recalled the latter, the letter having been sufficiently out of the ordinary to attract his attention.
“It was from somewhere in Mexico,” he said, and as letters of this nature are filed by states and countries, there was now no difficulty in locating it.
You may rest assured that this time I read the letter carefully. It was dated the third and postmarked Guaymas. Guaymas is a seaport in Sonora, on the Gulf of California.
Here is the letter:
My dear Sir:
Being engaged in a venture of great scientific importance, I find it necessary to solicit the assistance (not financial) of someone psychologically harmonious, who is at the same time of sufficient intelligence and culture to appreciate the vast possibilities of my project.
Why I have addressed you I shall be glad to explain in the happy event that a personal interview seems desirable. This can only be ascertained by a test which I shall now explain.
If a female figure in a white shroud enters your bedchamber at midnight on the thirteenth day of this month, answer this letter; otherwise, do not. If she speaks to you, please remember her words and repeat them to me when you write.
Assuring you of my appreciation of your earnest consideration of this letter, which I realize is rather unusual, and begging that you hold its contents in strictest confidence until future events shall have warranted its publication, I am, Sir,
“It looks to me like another nut,” commented Rothmund.
“So it did to me on the tenth,” I agreed; “but today is the fourteenth, and now it looks like another story.”
“What has the fourteenth got to do with it?” he demanded.
“Yesterday was the thirteenth,” I reminded him.
“You don’t mean to tell me—” he started, skeptically.
“That is just what I do mean to tell you,” I interrupted. “The lady came, I saw, she conquered.”
Ralph looked worried. “Don’t forget what your nurse told you after your last operation,” he reminded me.
“Which nurse? I had nine, and no two of them told me the same things.”
“Jerry. She said that narcotics often affected a patient’s mind for months afterward.” His tone was solicitous.
“Well, at least Jerry admitted that I had a mind, which some of the others didn’t. Anyway, it didn’t affect my eyesight; I saw what I saw. Please take a letter to Mr. Napier.”
A few days later I received a telegram from Napier dated Guaymas.
“Letter received Stop Thanks Stop Shall call on you tomorrow
,” it read.
“He must be flying,” I commented.
“Or coming in a white shroud,” suggested Ralph. “I think I’ll phone Captain Hodson to send a squad car around here; sometimes these nuts are dangerous.” He was still skeptical.
I must admit that we both awaited the arrival of Carson Napier with equal interest. I think Ralph expected to see a wild-eyed maniac. I could not visualize the man at all.
About eleven o’clock the following morning Ralph came into my study. “Mr. Napier is here,” he said.
“Does his hair grow straight out from his scalp, and do the whites of his eyes show all around the irises?” I inquired, smiling.
“No,” replied Ralph, returning the smile; “he is a very fine looking man, but,” he added, “I still think he’s a nut.”
“Ask him to come in,” and a moment later Ralph ushered in an exceptionally handsome man whom I judged to be somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years old, though he might have been even younger.
He came forward with extended hand as I rose to greet him, a smile lighting his face; and after the usual exchange of banalities he came directly to the point of his visit.
“To get the whole picture clearly before you,” he commenced, “I shall have to tell you something about myself. My father was a British army officer, my mother an American girl from Virginia. I was born in India while my father was stationed there, and brought up under the tutorage of an old Hindu who was much attached to my father and mother. This Chand Kabi was something of a mystic, and he taught me many things that are not in the curriculums of schools for boys under ten. Among them was telepathy, which he had cultivated to such
