ir experiments were conducted in the following manner: At a
prearranged hour Mr. Bessel shut himself in one of his rooms in the
Albany and Mr. Vincey in his sitting-room in Staple Inn, and each then
fixed his mind as resolutely as possible on the other. Mr. Bessel had
acquired the art of self-hypnotism, and, so far as he could, he
attempted first to hypnotise himself and then to project himself as a
"phantom of the living" across the intervening space of nearly two
miles into Mr. Vincey's apartment. On several evenings this was tried
without any satisfactory result, but on the fifth or sixth occasion Mr.
Vincey did actually see or imagine he saw an apparition of Mr. Bessel
standing in his room. He states that the appearance, although brief,
was very vivid and real. He noticed that Mr. Bessel's face was white
and his expression anxious, and, moreover, that his hair was
disordered. For a moment Mr. Vincey, in spite of his state of
expectation, was too surprised to speak or move, and in that moment it
seemed to him as though the figure glanced over its shoulder and
incontinently vanished.

It had been arranged that an attempt should be made to photograph any
phantasm seen, but Mr. Vincey had not the instant presence of mind to
snap the camera that lay ready on the table beside him, and when he did
so he was too late. Greatly elated, however, even by this partial
success, he made a note of the exact time, and at once took a cab to
the Albany to inform Mr. Bessel of this result.

He was surprised to find Mr. Bessel's outer door standing open to the
night, and the inner apartments lit and in an extraordinary disorder.
An empty champagne magnum lay smashed upon the floor; its neck had been
broken off against the inkpot on the bureau and lay beside it. An
octagonal occasional table, which carried a bronze statuette and a
number of choice books, had been rudely overturned, and down the
primrose paper of the wall inky fingers had been drawn, as it seemed,
for the mere pleasure of defilement. One of the delicate chintz
curtains had been violently torn from its rings and thrust upon the
fire, so that the smell of its smouldering filled the room. Indeed the
whole place was disarranged in the strangest fashion. For a few
minutes Mr. Vincey, who had entered sure of finding Mr. Bessel in his
easy chair awaiting him, could scarcely believe his eyes, and stood
staring helplessly at these unanticipated things.

Then, full of