Now consider the situation thus created. Since the plate had not been developed it is clear that neither Hope nor anyone at the College could possibly have known that it was a marked plate, for there was no publication of the alleged exposure until more than four months after. Who was there in the whole world who did know that this was a marked plate and one in which the S.P.R. might be expected to take a special interest? Clearly the experimenters of the S.P.R. and their confidants—no one else. But if the marked plate had been abstracted by Hope in the dark room and mixed up there with other plates how could any friend or emissary of the S.P.R. have picked it out as being the plate that was marked? It could not have been done. Therefore the conclusion seems to be irresistible that this plate was abstracted from the packet _before_ the experiment by someone who knew exactly what it was. If this be so, Hope is the victim of a conspiracy and he is a much ill-used man. I see no possible alternative to this conclusion. Let us see if we can build up any sort of theory which would cover all the known facts. Any such theory is bound to be improbable, but the improbable is better than the impossible, and it is quite impossible that Hope could have known that a plate was secretly marked when it had not been exposed or developed. We have to remember that the knot of conspirators (some consciously so, and some not) are in close touch with a group of conjurers. These gentlemen have announced that there is no packet which cannot be opened and no seal which cannot be tampered with undetected. For twenty-four days after Mr. Price takes his packet of marked plates to the headquarters of the S.P.R. it was locked up not in a safe but in an ordinary drawer, which may or may not have been locked, but could presumably be easily opened. My belief is that during that long period the packet was actually opened and the top plates taken out. Upon one of these top plates a faked photograph was thrown from one of those small projectors which produce just such an effect as is shown on the returned plate. The idea may have been that Hope would claim this effect as his own and that he would then be confounded by the announcement that it was there all the time. That was the first stage. The second stage was that either the original conspirator relented or someone else who was in his confidence thought it was too bad, so the packet was again tampered with, the marked and faked plate taken out and a plain one substituted. The packet was then taken to Hope as described. Mr. Hope then got a perfectly honest psychic effect upon the unmarked plate. Meanwhile the abstracter, whoever he may have been, had the original faked plate in his possession, and out of a spirit of pure mischief—for I can imagine no other reason—he wrapped it in a sheet of the College syllabus, which can easily be obtained, and returned it to the S.P.R., to whom it originally belonged.