But if Willett and Mr. Ward refrained from showing this letter to the alienists, they did not refrain from acting upon it themselves. No amount of learned sophistry could controvert the fact that the strangely bearded and spectacled Dr. Allen, of whom Charles’ frantic letter had spoken as such a monstrous menace, was in close and sinister correspondence with two inexplicable creatures whom Ward had visited in his travels and who plainly claimed to be survivals or avatars of Curwen’s old Salem colleagues; that he was regarding himself as the reincarnation of Joseph Curwen, and that he entertained⁠—or was at least advised to entertain⁠—murderous designs against a “boy” who could scarcely be other than Charles Ward. There was organized horror afoot; and no matter who had started it, the missing Allen was by this time at the bottom of it. Therefore, thanking Heaven that Charles was now safe in the hospital, Mr.