“Miss Van Loan,” he said, “allow me to present Mr. Evans, my friend and colleague. Like me, he is an investigator of the supernormal in psychic phenomena.” Her acknowledgment of the introduction was accompanied by a charming smile that immediately put me at my ease. “I have heard of your work in connection with that of Dr. Dorp,” she said. “How fortunate that I find you two together--especially as my reason for coming to see the doctor has a direct bearing on the very subject that seems to be of interest to both of you. Won’t you stay?” I relapsed once more into my chair. The doctor, I observed, had pricked up his ears like a hound on a hot trail. He leaned forward in his chair and pressed the tips of his fingers together--an attitude he always assumed when absorbed in a problem that was of intense interest to him. “Miss Van Loan,” he began, “you are not by any chance a relative of my old friend and fellow worker, Gordon Van Loan?” “I am his niece.” “Indeed. I begin to understand your interest in spiritistic phenomena. Dense of me not to have thought of it before.” “But, doctor, I am not interested in spiritistic phenomena.” “Eh? Not interested? I’m afraid I don’t--” “I have always feared and detested the very thought of meeting or communicating with the disembodied spirits.” “Really, Miss Van Loan, you surprise me,” said the doctor. “Your uncle, up to the very time of his death, was an ardent supporter of the spiritistic hypothesis. I have had many a private debate with him on the subject.” “I am aware of that. I, too, have argued the subject with him when it was forced on me. Until three days ago I was as firm an unbeliever as you. But now--I don’t know what to think. It seems that my uncle, even in death, has resolved to force his belief upon me.” “You mean that he has appeared to you?” “I’m not sure, but strange things--terrible, enervating things--have happened since I began to carry out the provisions of my uncle’s will.” “He left his entire fortune to you, did he not?” “Yes, but with a provision which I am afraid I won’t be able to carry out. He stipulated that I must live in his old home in Highland Park continuously for one year, and that if I should fail to do so everything would revert to my cousin, Ernest Hegel, or in the event of his failure to carry out the provision, to the Society for Psychical Research.” “Your uncle was reputed to be quite wealthy.” “He left something over half a million, most of which was in first mortgage real estate bonds, in addition to the home and estate, which is estimated to be worth at least a hundred thousand.” “Quite a sizeable bequest, and, it seems to me, an ample recompense for the condition imposed with it.” “So I thought too, until I spent a night in that awful house. It was then that I began to realize the full import of his explanation of the reasons for his unusual provision.” “Just what was his explanation?”