Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 4 (1925-10).djvu/76

speak to you before I became entirely invisible. Your book, page 147, speaks of the process. You called it 'fading', if you will remember."

I was becoming more and more confused. He sounded far from rational. I knew that I was not dreaming and that this could not be a practical joke. I had never seen the fellow before. Yet there was no apparent solution. As hackwork, I had written a book on spiritualism, voicing my belief that death was not the end of everything; but I had never expected to have a ghost come to my consulting room in the middle of the afternoon to prove it to me.

"You are sure you were dead?"' I asked inanely.

I had to repeat my question before he came out of the sort of stupor into which he had fallen. Then he jerked himself together. "Absolutely sure. I stood before a mirror like that one." He pointed to a full-length mirror beside my instrument cabinet. "Oh, those knives are so glittering! Do you think I made a mistake in using a revolver? Would poison have been easier?"

"Well, I'm not an authority on suicide," I had to confess.

"Still, the shot did not hurt. I didn't feel any pain at all, just the explosion and a momentary vibration. I—where was I?"

"Standing before a mirror," I prompted.

"Yes, I'd been having worries—love, you know; couldn't sleep at night, and all. When the thought of suicide came, I took my revolver from my bureau drawer, pressed it close to my heart, and without waiting a second, pulled the trigger and fell dead on the floor. Then I left myself lying there, and came here. Nobody seemed to notice me along the street. Perhaps they couldn't see me. Can you?"

I nodded. "But you said you were lying on the floor?"

"Yes. I looked back to make sure just before I closed the door. Remembering your warning on page 343 against retention of psychic visions, I tested myself carefully. But I know my body is there. This is my astral self. It was a terrifying sight, blood trickling from the wound." He suddenly became conscious of the stain on his knuckle. He raised his right hand as if to wipe the mark away, thought better of it, and dropped his hand. "Terrifying sight," he repeated.

"It must have been. You're the first astral body I've ever seen. Is there anything unusual about your earthly body?"

"I didn't stop to see. But would you care to go and look?"

"Yes, indeed."

"I had hoped you would." He gave me the address. But he refused to accompany me. "I'll stay here," he promised. "I may not last till you get back. I'm fading fast. But if I'm entirely a ghost when you return, I'll—I'll move that paper." He pointed to a temperaturegraph hanging partly over the edge of my desk. "But hurry."

"I'll be back in an hour," I promised.

I was better than my word. Forty minutes later I puffed up the stairs. He was still there, lost in thought.

"Did you find me?" he asked immediately.

"Yes, just as you said, lying beside the bureau with a bullet in your heart. But I don't understand one thing."

"How I came here? That was because I was materialized, embodied. Chapter seven of your book was entirely right in its assertions."

"No, that's not it. I'm interested in that, of course, and I'd appreciate it if you would take off your shirt and let me see whether materialized