Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/133

Rh I had only to speak of 'servilely copying' to have her change 'invitation' into 'imitation.' A mere mention of researches made her think she saw 'investigate,' when the word was 'inviolate.' Finally, after showing her a picture in which there were two women and a man, but no boy, she stated, at my slight suggestion, that she saw a boy, and even described him for me and told me what he was doing. I had proved beyond cavil the utter worthlessness of evidence given by this woman, and dismissed her."

"I followed that!" Eldredge granted.

Trant continued: "So I tested your wife to show that she had not suggestibility, like Miss Hendricks—that is, she could not be made to say that she saw 'senate' instead of 'sedate' by a mere mention of the national legislature at the time the word was shown; nor would she make over 'pioseer' into 'pioneer,' under the suggestion of backwoodsman. But by getting her into an excitable condition with her mind emotionally set to expect a picture of the missing boy, her excited mind at the moment of perception altered the picture of the totally different six-year-old boy I showed her into the picture of Edward, as readily as her highly excited senses—fearing for herself and for the boy through Mrs. Murray—altered the woman she saw taking Edward into an emotional semblance of Mrs. Murray.

"I had understood it as essential to clear your wife as to find the boy—whom I appreciated could be in no danger. So I made the next test with Mrs. Murray. This, I admit, depended largely upon chance. I knew, of course, that she must know where the boy