“Now tell me this--with all your knowledge of these things, can you help me?” I asked him what he had done, and he told me a long chronicle of visits to mediums in New York, of an attempt to talk through a voodoo woman in New Orleans, and of honest, patient sittings in a little suburban circle in London. Carthew was clearly desperate and absolutely in earnest. I knew without his telling me what was at the back of his mind. The problem was a peculiar one, for here was a live man to all intents haunted by a malicious spirit now on another plane. Carthew’s character was a strong one, though of a low and violent type. This mental persecution had produced a prodigious feeling of hatred for the dead man--a feeling of hatred that had not existed when he was alive, for then the hatred was all on Tregarthen’s side. There was also the possibility that the knock was pure hallucination and not a genuine clairaudient phenomenon at all. I asked Carthew if he could give me particulars of how Tregarthen died, and I was not surprised to learn that his end had been a violent one. A small oil gusher had broken out as an offshoot from the larger one. In order to cut off the flow and waste of oil it is the practice to force a dynamite cartridge into these small leads. This when exploded breaks the natural channel of the oil and blocks the outlet. Tregarthen, through an accident or carelessness--he was a deep drinker--had destroyed himself when preparing the charge. I asked Carthew if he was prepared to attend a séance or two and if he would put himself completely in my hands. He assented readily, reasserting his dominant desire to be able to talk back to Tregarthen. I was holding private séances twice a week then, but my little circle was, though powerful enough for research work, quite unsuitable for dealing with an abnormal case of undesired communication. During the week I got into touch with a private medium whose faculty of clairaudience was coupled with an excellent nervous system, and I reinforced the circle by the addition of Dr. Miller,[1] who, though not a professed Spiritualist, is no sceptic concerning occult phenomena and is admittedly one of the most successful practitioners of curative psychology that we have to-day. A few days later Carthew came to my chambers in the Temple and was introduced to the members of the circle. I placed him on the left-hand contact side of the medium and lowered the lights. The medium engaged in this case was under double controls, one a spirit called “Louis,” the other a rather elusive and intermittent control that answered to the name of “Montecatini.” The trance state was entered almost immediately and “Louis” took control. I asked him to find Tregarthen and he showed considerable reluctance, insisting that he was “not there.” The control “Louis” was then dispossessed by “Montecatini,” who answered in an entirely different voice and showed a distinct and separate personality.