Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/117

Rh on grounds of 'precedent' and 'common sense.' They accept the word of a witness where its truth seems likely, and refuse it where it seems otherwise. And, having determined the preponderance of evidence, they sometimes say, as you have just said of Lucy Carew, 'though correct in everything else, in this one particular fact our truthful witness is mistaken.' There is no room for mistakes, Mr. Eldredge, in scientific psychology. Instead of analyzing evidence by the haphazard methods of the courts, we can analyze it scientifically, exactly, incontrovertibly—we can select infallibly the true from the false. And that is what I mean to do now," he added, "if my apparatus, for which you telephoned this morning, has come."

"The boxes are in the rear hall," Eldredge replied. "I have obtained over a hundred views of the locality, and the cards you requested me to secure are here too."

"Good! Then you will get together the witnesses? The maid and the chauffeur I need to see only for a moment. I will question them while you are sending for Miss Hendricks."

Eldredge rang for the butler. "Bring in those boxes which have just come for Mr. Trant," he commanded. "Send this note to Miss Hendricks"—he wrote a few lines swiftly—"and tell Lucy and Morris to come here at once."

He watched Trant curiously while he bent to his boxes and began taking out his apparatus. Trant first unpacked a varnished wooden box with a small drop window in one end. Opposite the window was a rack upon which cards or pictures could be placed.