"How does it happen, then, that the identical expression, stoppage of blood, is found both in your message and in the father's letter?"

"It is I who inspired him with that expression".

As you perceive, the case becomes increasingly complicated and interesting. In point of fact, Mdlle. E., some days after the message of January 3rd (15th) did in fact see in a dream Duvanel covered with blood (ensanglante). The contradictory statements in the letters (of her father and sister) led her to suspect that the truth was being concealed from her, and that there had really been a suicide. It was only in the autumn of 1887, when Mdlle. E. made a journey to Switzerland to see her relations, that she learnt all the truth, confirming the second message.

The fears of Louis and of her relations as to the bad effect which the news of the suicide might have upon Mdlle. E. were in fact exaggerated. For Mdlle. E. had left Switzerland in 1881, and up till the message of January 3rd (15th), 1887, had received no news of Duvanel. Some time after Mdlle. E.'s departure Duvanel left Neufchatel for Geneva, where he was employed at a bank; - which explains the phrase in the father's letter, saying that D. had died of a stoppage of blood "while he was at the bank." But of late he had lived in a little hamlet of the Canton of Zurich. All this Mdlle. Emma learnt on her visit to her relations.

After all these facts, however, the problem as to the possibility of a telepathic influence from the parents of Mdlle. E. is not yet decided. To clear up this point we must know the exact day when the father of Mdlle. E. learnt the death of Duvanel, and we must know the details he then heard. If Mdlle. E.'s relations had heard the news of D.'s suicide on the very day of his death; and if it had been decided in family discussion that they would conceal from her the manner of his death, and adopt the expression "stoppage of blood"; - then one might still conjecture that there had been a telepathic transmission of thought.

But the father's letter was written January 18th, and, as Mdlle. E. says [in her letter of April 16th, 1889], it is probable that the meeting in the train [when the father heard of Duvanel's death from Duvanel's brother] took place on the 17th, and thus after the sitting of January 3rd (15th). In that case, if telepathy there were, it would be needful to seek the inspirer (the "agent provocateur!") in some factor outside the minds of Mdlle. E. or her relations.

But this probability is not enough; and the essential question as to the day when Mdlle. E.'s relations learnt the death of Duvanel is not yet determined. I will write again on this point to the ci-devant Mdlle. Stramm, who is now Madame Kaigorodoff; for the Colonel in his last letter to me announces his marriage with Mdlle. Emma Stramm. I will beg her to ask her father to fix as precisely as possible the day of his meeting with Duvanel's brother. The reply shall be sent to you at once.

Thus, then, we have in this case of spiritualistic communication: (1) the news of a death at a distance; (2) the manner of death; (3) the place of death; all unknown to the medium.

On June 24th (July 6th) 1889, M. Aksakoff again wrote to me as follows:-

M. Kaigorodoff has had the kindness to send me in original the letter of Madame Kaigorodoff's sister. I enclose a copy. As you perceive, the father learnt the news of Duvanel's death on January 17th, two days, therefore, after the death itself, and two days after the news of the death was received at Wilna in Russia. The circumstance that this news was heard by M. Stramm in a merely accidental way, and only on the day of the funeral, proves that in fact all relations between Duvanel and the Stramm family had been suspended. The letter of Mdlle. Bertha is dated from Rochefort; that is a small town, at twenty minutes' railway journey from Neufchatel; and it is there, strictly speaking, and not at Neufchatel, that the Stramm family reside.

Copy of part of Mdlle. Bertha Stramm's letter to her sister, Madame Kaigorodoff, dated Rochefort, June 16th, 1889.

"Duvanel died January 15th, and papa learnt the news on the 17th, for he met Duvanel's brother, who was setting out for the funeral. The brother was to leave for America a few days later. It is I who have recollected this, by searching my memory, for papa is old and feeble and does not now remember anything of the matter. I cannot tell you the name of the village where the death occurred".