PROLOGUE
Perhaps it were just as well to start at the beginning. A mere matter ofnews.
All the world at the time knew the story; but for the benefit of thosewho have forgotten I shall repeat it. I am merely giving it as I havetaken it from the papers with no elaboration and no opinion--a merestatement of facts. It was a celebrated case at the time and stirred theworld to wonder. Indeed, it still is celebrated, though to the layman itis forgotten.
It has been labelled and indexed and filed away in the archives of theprofession. To those who wish to look it up it will be spoken of as oneof the great unsolved mysteries of the century. A crime that leads twoways, one into murder--sordid, cold and calculating; and the other intothe nebulous screen that thwarts us from the occult.
Perhaps it is the character of Dr. Holcomb that gives the latter. He wasa great man and a splendid thinker. That he should have been led into amaze of cheap necromancy is, on the face, improbable. He had a wonderfulmind. For years he had been battering down the scepticism that hadbulwarked itself in the material.
He was a psychologist, and up to the day the greatest, perhaps, that wehave known. He had a way of going out before his fellows--it is the wayof genius--and he had gone far, indeed, before them. If we would trustDr. Holcomb we have much to live for; our religion is not all hearsayand there is a great deal in science still unthought of. It is anunfortunate case; but there is much to be learned in the circumstancethat led the great doctor into the Blind Spot.