_ 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.
I was enormously glad to have this man's expert, high-tension knowledge right on tap.
The remaining member of the quintet which Sir Henry advised me to summon requires a little explanation. Also, I am obliged to give him a name not his own; for it is not often that brigadier- generals of the United States army can openly lend their names to anything so far removed apparently from militarism as the searching of the occult.
Yet we knew that this man possessed a power that few scientists have developed; the power of co-ordination, of handling and balancing great facts and forces, and of deciding promptly how best to meet any given situation. Not that we looked for anything militaristic out of the Blind Spot; far from it. We merely knew not what to expect, which was exactly why we wanted to have him with us; his type of mind is, perhaps, the most solidly comforting sort that any mystery-bound person can have at his side.
By the time these five had gathered, Jerome had neither returned nor telephoned. There was not the slightest trace of Rhamda Avec; no guessing as to whether he had seen the ad. It was then one o'clock in the afternoon. Only six hours ago! It doesn't seem possible.
So there were eight of us--three women and five men--who went upstairs and quietly inspected the all but lifeless form of Ariadne and afterwards gathered in the library below.
All were thoroughly familiar with the situation. Miss Clarke calmly commented to the effect that the entire Blind Spot affair was due wholly and simply to the cumulative effects of so many, many subjects; the result, in other words, of error.
Dr. Malloy was equally outspoken in his announcement that he proposed to deal with the matter from the standpoint of psychic aberration. He mentioned dissociated personalities, group hypnosis, and so on. But he declared that he was open to conviction, and anxious to get any and all facts.
Sir Henry had a good deal of difficulty in getting Mme. Le Fabre to commit herself. Probably she felt that, since Sir Henry had gone on record as being doubtful of the spiritistic explanation of psychic phenomena, she might get into a controversy with him. But in the end she stated that she expected to find our little mystery simply a novel variation on what was so familiar to her.
As might be supposed, General Hume had no opinion. He merely expressed himself as being prepared to accept any sound theory, or portions of such theories as might be advanced, and arrive at a workable conclusion therefrom. Which was exactly what we wanted of him.
Of them all, Professor Herold showed the most enthusiasm. Perhaps this was because, despite his attainments, he is still young. At any rate, he made it clear that he was fully prepared to learn something entirely new in science. And he was almost eager to adjust his previous notions and facts to the new discoveries.
When all these various viewpoints had been cleared up, and we felt that we understood each other, it was inevitable that we should look to Sir Henry to state his position. This one man combined a large amount of the various, specialised abilities for which the others were noted, and they all knew and respected him accordingly. Had he stood and theorised half the afternoon, they would willingly have sat and listened. But instead he glanced at his watch, and observed:
"To me, the most important development of all was hearing the sound of a dog's bark coming from the ring. As I recall the details, the sound was emitted just after the gem had been submitted to considerable handling, from Miss Fenton's fingers to her brother's and back again. In other words, it was subjected to a mixture of opposing animal magnetisms. Suppose we experiment further with it now."
Charlotte slipped the gem from her finger and passed it around. Each of us held it for a second or two; after which Charlotte clasped the ring tightly in her palm, while we all joined hands.
It was, as I have said, broad daylight; the hour, shortly after one. Scarcely had our hands completed the circuit than something happened.
From out of Charlotte's closed hand there issued an entirely new sound. At first it was so faint and fragmentary that only two of us heard it. Then it became stronger and more continuous, and presently we were all gazing at each other in wonderment.
For the sound was that of footsteps. _