Though sufficiently astonished and disturbed by this performance, I was not, like Conlon, wholly at sea. Sober accounts of automatic writing could be found in all modern psychologies; I had read some of these accounts--given with all the dry detachment of clinical data. They had interested me, not thrilled me. No supernatural power was involved. It was merely the comparative rarity of such phenomena in the ordinary normal course of experience that made them seem awe-inspiring. And yet, the _hand_ there, solely animate, patiently writing in entire independence of a consciously directing will----! My spine, too, like Conlon's, registered an authentic shiver of protest and atavistic fear. But, throughout, I kept my tautened wits about me, busily working; and they drove me now on a sudden inspiration to the writing-table, where I seized pen and paper and wrote down with the most collected celerity a condensed account of--for so I phrased it--"what must, from the established facts, be supposed to have taken place in Mrs. Hunt's boudoir, just after Miss Blake had entered it." I put this account deliberately as my theory of the matter, as the one solution of the problem consistent with the given facts and the known characters involved; and I had barely concluded when I was startled to my feet by Doctor Askew's voice--raised cheerily above its monotonous murmur of questions to the hand--calling my name. "What are you up to, Mr. Hunt? My little experiment's over. It's a complete success." He was walking toward me with a handful of loose scribbled sheets from the linen block. "How is she now?" I inquired anxiously, as if she had just been subjected to a dangerous operation. "All right. Deep under. I shan't try to pull her out yet. Much better for her to come out of it naturally herself. I suggest we darken the room and leave her." "That suits _me_!" I just caught from Conlon, over by the door. "She'll be quite safe alone?" "Absolutely. I want to read this thing to Conlon and Mrs. Arthur and Mr. Phar, before the coroner gets here. I rather think they'll find it convincing." "Good," I responded. "But, first of all, let me read them this. I've just jotted down my analysis of the whole situation. It's a piece of cold constructive reasoning from the admitted data, and I shall be greatly surprised if it doesn't on the whole agree with what you've been able to obtain." Doctor Askew stared at me a moment curiously. "And if it doesn't agree?" he asked. "If it don't," exclaimed Conlon, with obvious relief, "it may help us, all the same! This thing can't be settled by _that_ kind of stuff, doc." He gave a would-be contemptuous nod toward Doctor Askew's handful of scrawled pages. "That's no evidence--whatever it says. Where does it come from? Who's givin' it? It can't be sworn to on the Book, that's certain--eh? Let's get outa here and begin to talk sense!" Conlon opened the door eagerly, and creaked off through the hall.