experiment, made ready to spend a night in the empty house on the top of
Putney Hill. Only two rooms were prepared for occupation: the study on
the ground floor and the bedroom immediately above it; all other doors
were to be locked, and no servant was to be left in the house. The motor
had orders to call for him at nine o'clock the following morning.

And, meanwhile, his secretary had instructions to look up the past
history and associations of the place, and learn everything he could
concerning the character of former occupants, recent or remote.

The animals, by whose sensitiveness he intended to test any unusual
conditions in the atmosphere of the building, Dr. Silence selected with
care and judgment. He believed (and had already made curious experiments
to prove it) that animals were more often, and more truly, clairvoyant
than human beings. Many of them, he felt convinced, possessed powers of
perception far superior to that mere keenness of the senses common to
all dwellers in the wilds where the senses grow specially alert; they
had what he termed "animal clairvoyance," and from his experiments with
horses, dogs, cats, and even birds, he had drawn certain deductions,
which, however, need not be referred to in detail here.

Cats, in particular, he believed, were almost continuously conscious of
a larger field of vision, too detailed even for a photographic camera,
and quite beyond the reach of normal human organs. He had, further,
observed that while dogs were usually terrified in the presence of such
phenomena, cats on the other hand were soothed and satisfied. They
welcomed manifestations as something belonging peculiarly to their own
region.

He selected his animals, therefore, with wisdom so that they might