Parapsychology -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Telepathy -- Fiction
I called out, but he went on out the door. I ran after him into the
hall, but he had ducked out a side door. I followed him across the
darkening campus. But his car roared away before I could reach him. I
did not have a car so I could not follow.
I didn't talk to the others. I went home. And I began to phone, trying
to locate Marsten. I called every few minutes and I called the police
and everyone who knew him. The police said they would put out a dragnet
if he didn't show up within the next twenty-four hours. I had explained
he was in great distress, that I was afraid of what he might do.
I didn't sleep well that night. There was no word about Marsten's
whereabouts in the morning. I began to think that perhaps suicide was
the only way out for him now. I doubted that he would be able to face
the failure of that experiment he had planned for so long, and on which
he had staked all of what remained of his reputation.
* * * * *
I managed to get three of the nine scientists to be with me when I
went to the office at the university and opened the safe and took out
that sealed envelope next morning. De Vaca, a small nervous man with
constant flighty gestures, Morrison, biology professor, a solemn, bald
little man, and Billingsley who had a jaw like a prizefighter, and was
big and gruff, but brilliant.
They, too, were worried about Marsten's disappearance, considering his
state of mind. Now we all wanted to know what that envelope contained.
Maybe its contents would assist us in helping Marsten--if we found him.
After examining the contents of the sealed envelope, we sat around the
table and no one said anything for what seemed a long time. Finally
De Vaca said, "He failed all right. But it was a wonderful plan, and
certainly we could no longer deny the existence of mental telepathy had
this idea worked out as he planned it."
Morrison said, "But we must find Marsten before he kills himself. He
should be institutionalized, now, his mental unbalance treated...."
The others agreed. They began to discuss where to begin the search for
Marsten.
I thought about what we had found in that sealed envelope. Marsten
had had a great idea all right. Although the professors had selected
their own order of going into the testing room, Professor Marsten had
arbitrarily numbered each of them from 1 to 9. Using the subjects
which they taught instead of their names, he expected to prove mental
telepathy. In the envelope he had left this list:
_1. Thackeray----Professor of English Literature_
_2. Evolution----Professor of Biology_
_3. Lungs----Professor of Anatomy_
_4. Elgar----Professor of Music_
_5. Phenobarbital----Professor of Medicine_
_6. Adler----Professor of Psychology_
_7. Trotsky----Professor of Russian History_
_8. Hockey----Professor in Physical Education_
_9. Yuletide----Professor in Theology_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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