Parapsychology -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Telepathy -- Fiction
But I didn't know the technique he had used. I kept thinking of that
one successful hit in the case of Doctor Adler. Here, I thought
desperately, might be the clue to his technique.... I stayed up and
worked at it another day, and into another night. If I could only prove
that the experiment hadn't failed completely, then that information
could be broadcast, televised, and maybe Marsten would see or hear, if
he still lived, and then would want to keep on living.
It was odd how positive I was that there was something there that
would prove Marsten right. Maybe we're all aware of much more than we
think we are--and could have greater awareness if we could only raise a
few mental curtains....
I pounded my brains out on that Adler angle. She was the only woman in
the group. Maybe that had meaning. I went through some of Marsten's
notes, but there weren't enough of them, and they weren't the basic
ones. I skimmed through books on Extra Sensory Perception. But I didn't
get anywhere....
And then the phone rang and I answered it. It was Police Lieutenant
Walters, at the local precinct station. He had promised to let me know
at once if they found any trace of Marsten.
"We found him," Walters said tersely. "He's on a ledge outside a window
of the Loeb Building at Fifth and Pinehurst!"
I said, "My God!" Then, "Will you pick me up?"
He said, "Yes. Maybe you can talk him out of it. You were close to him.
We've sent the emergency squads over. Never know when they'll jump when
they're like that. One move at the wrong time and that makes them jump.
I'll be there in five minutes...."
I felt sick with panic and hopelessness. Then, in that moment, out of
nowhere, came the flash--the key--it shone there before me all at once,
the answer I'd been looking for! I knew it had been there all along
and my mind had gone around it time and again. And suddenly it was
there, conscious and clear.
I arranged it all in my mind as we rode over to Fifth and Pinehurst,
the police lieutenant intent on driving speedily through the heavy
traffic.
If I could get to Marsten in time, I could save him! I'd had the
explanation all along--I'd read it in a scientific journal, in reports
I'd skimmed through on ESP. Marsten would understand--if I could get to
him in time! He hadn't been wrong. And I could give him proof....
A big crowd was gathered in the early dawn, standing silently in the
street, staring upward at the small figure on the ledge. The wind was
cold and steady and in the early morning greyness I saw Marsten, thirty
stories up, hunched against the side of the building. He wasn't a man
to exhibit himself for melodramatic recognition. Therefore, I knew he
must be very far out of his normal mind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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