“I have not seen him,” was the reply. “The man’s mind was charged to the brim when he wrote that; full of vivid mental pictures. Notice the restraint of it. For the main character of his case psychometry could be depended upon, and the scrap of paper his hand has touched is sufficient to give to another mind⁠—a sensitive and sympathetic mind⁠—clear mental pictures of what is going on. I think I have a very sound general idea of his problem.”

“So there may be excitement, after all?”

John Silence waited a moment before he replied.

“Something very serious is amiss there,” he said gravely, at length. “Someone⁠—not himself, I gather⁠—has been meddling with a rather dangerous kind of gunpowder. So⁠—yes, there may be excitement, as you put it.”

“And my duties?” I asked, with a decidedly growing interest. “Remember, I am your ‘assistant.’ ”