Chapter XXV: At the Eleventh Hour

I dropped the paper in dismay. Charlotte looked up, startled, gave me a single look, and turned pale,

“What--what’s the matter?” she stammered fearfully.

I showed her. Then I ran to the phone. In a few seconds I was talking to the very man who had taken the note from the messenger the day before.

“Yes, I handed it in along with the rest,” he replied to my excited query. Then--”Wait a minute,” said he; and a moment later added: “Say, Mr. Fenton, I’ve made a mistake! Here’s the darned ad on the counter; it must have slipped under the blotter.”

I went back and told Charlotte. We stared at one another blankly. Why in the name of all that was baffling had our ad “slipped” under that blotter? And what were we to do?

This was the second day!

Well, we did what we could. We arranged for the insertion of the same notice in each of the three afternoon papers. There would still be time for the Rhamda to act, if he saw it.

The hours dragged by. Never did time pass more slowly; and yet, I begrudged every one. So much for being absolutely helpless.

About ten o’clock the next morning--that is to say, today; I am writing this the same evening--the front door bell rang. Charlotte answered and in a moment came back with a card. It read:

SIR HENRY HODGES

I nearly upset the table in my excitement. I ran into the hall. Who wouldn’t? Sir Henry Hodges! The English scientist about whom the whole world was talking! The most gifted investigator of the day; the most widely informed; of all men on the face of the globe, the best equipped, mentally, to explore the unknown! Without the slightest formality I grabbed his hand and shook it until he smiled at my enthusiasm.

“My dear Sir Henry,” I told him, “I’m immensely glad to see you! The truth is, I’ve been hoping you’d be interested in our case; but I didn’t have the nerve to bother you with it!”

“And I,” he admitted in his quiet way, “have been longing to take a hand in it, ever since I first heard of Professor Holcomb’s disappearance. Didn’t like to offer myself; understood that the matter had been hushed up and--”

“For the very simple reason,” I explained, “that there was nothing to be gained by publicity. If we had given the public the facts, we would have been swamped with volunteers to help us. I didn’t know whom to confide in, Sir Henry; couldn’t make up my mind. I only knew that one such man as yourself was just what I needed.”

He overlooked the compliment, and pulled out the newspaper from his pocket. “Bought this a few minutes ago. Saw your ad, and jumped to the conclusion that matters had reached an acute stage. Let me have the whole story, my boy, as briefly as you can.”

He already knew the published details. Also, he seemed to be acquainted--in some manner which puzzled me--with much that had not been printed. I sketched the affair as quickly as I could, making it clear that we were face to face with a crisis. When I wound up by saying that it was Dr. Higgins who gave Ariadne three days, ending about midnight, in which she might recover if we could secure Rhamda Avec, he said kindly:

“I’m afraid you made a mistake, my boy, in not seeking some help. The game has reached a point where you cannot have too many brains on your side. Time is short for reinforcements!”

He heartily approved of my course in enlisting the aid of Miss Clarke and her colleagues. “That is the sort of thing you need! People with mentality; plenty of intellectual force!” And he went on to make suggestions.

As a result, within an hour and a half our house was sheltering five more persons.

Miss Clarke has already been introduced. She was easily one of the ten most advanced practitioners in her line. And she had the advantage of a curiosity that was interested in everything odd, even though she labelled it “non-existent.” She said it helped her faith in the real truths to be conversant with the unreal.

Dr. Malloy was from the university, an out-and-out materialist, a psychologist who made life interesting for those who agreed with William James. His investigations of abnormal psychology are world-acknowledged.

Mme. Le Fabre, we afterwards learned, had come from Versailles especially to investigate the matter that was bothering us. She possessed no mediumistic properties of her own but was a staunch proponent of spiritualism, believing firmly in immortality and the omnipotence of “translated” souls.

Professor Herold is most widely known as the inventor of certain apparatus connected with wireless. But he is also considered the West’s most advanced student of electrical and radio-active subjects.