The cards the professors had handed in were also there beside us on
the table. I went through those cards again, slowly, while De Vaca and
Morrison and Billingsley debated as to the best way of locating Marsten.
I wanted to do more than just find Marsten. I wanted to be able to help
him when he was found. The cards the professors had handed in listed
what they thought they had received from Marsten via mental telepathy.
This is what they had written:
_1. Shakespeare----Professor of English Literature_
_2. Darwin----Professor of Biology_
_3. Kidney----Professor of Anatomy_
_4. Debussey----Professor of Music_
_5. Opiate----Professor of Medicine_
_6. Adler----Professor of Psychology_
_7. Stalin----Professor in Russian History_
_8. Golf----Professor in Physical Education_
_9. Xmas----Professor in Theosophy._
Each professor had written something _similar_ in meaning to what
Marsten had tried, through mental telepathy, to put into their minds.
Except in the case of the Professor of Psychology. And in that one case
there was a direct hit, as Marsten had said.
Oddly enough, Marian Adler had the same surname as the great
psychoanalyst, Alfred Adler, whom Marsten had chosen for one of his
projected thoughts. To me, the results did not seem the complete
failure Marsten thought them. But of course Marsten had wanted to hit
it one hundred percent. Nothing less would have satisfied a scientific
mind like his in such an experiment.
The acrostic: S-D-K-D-O-A-S-G-X formed by the words apparently received
by the Professors in that locked room was merely a jumble of letters,
spelling out nothing of any meaning.
Finally, we parted to go our separate ways. I took the envelope and
cards and went home. The others, with cars, would search for Marsten.
I'd forgotten my work, my thesis, everything. I wanted to figure
out something, but I didn't even know what it was. I had a most
unscientific idea--a hunch!
All day I thought and sweated over that envelope's contents, the cards,
the two acrostics:
T-E-L-E-P-A-T-H-Y
and
S-D-K-D-O-A-S-G-X
I worked all that day and through the night, but I could make no
connection between the two acrostics.
Meanwhile, the search continued for Marsten, but there was no sign of
him or his car. I sweated it out, trying to convince myself that he
wasn't already dead, that when he was found I, meanwhile, would have
found something in the remains of that experiment to give him new zest,
new hope.
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!"