My most honoured colleagues, of the Royal Society of London,
It is with no small amount of hesitation that I write to you with a humble request for your assistance, in the matter of conducting a full enquiry into a series of events that transpired at my laboratory on the afternoon of August twenty-third of this year. Having endeavoured to conduct such an enquiry myself, my efforts have been stymied by a lack of tangible evidence that might point toward any particular conclusion; and perhaps by my own inability to see past the complications I have encountered, and perceive a single crystalline solution; which is why I feel it would be beneficial to have assistance from those who are by their nature impartial.
The matter is complicated by the nature of those experiments, which I have been conducting over the past year. I have, in past, written to you at length regarding this project; but I am not so presumptuous as to assume that any of you might recollect its details, with no reminder whatever:
It has long been known, that our own senses are subjected to various infirmities the like of which might be corrected through the use of instruments, to aid the perception; in particular through the use of such optical glasses as can make the far distant manifest to our eyes, as though it lay immediately before us; and as can magnify even particles so small as to be invisible to the unaided eye, that we might observe them. It has more recently become evident that these very phaenomena that are so distant to our everyday perception, may have more profound effects upon those things that we perceive unaided, than we knew before; that the tidal habits of our oceans, result from the influence of the Moon; or that sickness, is caused by creatures imperceptibly small in size.
It is this notion, that that which is imperceptible by the unaided eye might have such effects as are manifestly evident, which guided the course of my experimentation; I sought to create an instrument that might aid the perception of other imperceptible factors that influence the visible world, namely, the supernatural. The instrument—to which I have not yet given a name, as it remains incomplete—functions, or is intended to function, following the same underlying principle as my colleague M. von G-----'s observations of colour: that, in the case of those phaenomena previously ill-understood, it is best to observe in a sidelong manner, rather than confronting the matter directly; and in the case of my instrument and its aim particularly, the barest glimpse of the Godly or the ghostly is precisely as unprecedented, as would be a close examination.
After some months of preparations I had constructed a working model, which matched the image of the instrument I held in my mind's eye; and on the afternoon of August the twenty-third I and my associate P----- set its workings into motion to test its effectiveness; for though it was incomplete, it ought to have functioned as we planned it to. I had just set my eye to the eye-piece of the instrument, and was adjusting the length of the optical tube to which it was attached; when above the whir of the machinery there came a terrible screech the origin of which I could not readily determine; and which lasted but a few moments, but echoed even more terribly for what seemed like minutes afterward; and it brought with it a brilliant flash of light which blinded me temporarily, and a sudden gust of hot wind, of sufficient force to knock me from my feet. Upon regaining my sight I looked round for P----- because I had not heard him shout with surprise; and I discovered that he had not so shouted because he was lying stone dead upon the floor; and the expression on his face was one of horror, as though he had been frightened to death. His body had no other mark upon it; and try as I might I could not close his eyelids; as though whatever had frightened him so would not relinquish its hold upon him, even in death.
I have been reluctant to call upon the help of the police, for two reasons: firstly, that since P----- and I were alone in my laboratory at the time of the incident, suspicion would naturally fall upon me, my protestations notwithstanding; and secondly, that if the incident were indeed a result of supernatural intervention of some sort, as I believe it to have been—though I cannot conceive of what could have gone so terribly awry, as to have caused such a series of events—Scotland Yard is hardly the sort of authority that can claim to preside over the wrongdoer.
Therefore I beseech your aid, with some urgency; as I fear that word of this matter cannot be contained indefinitely; my laboratory and its instruments are in disarray, and I am loath to restore them to their working order before a full enquiry has been conducted; the patron of my laboratory, Lord R----- of L-----, is distraught by the idea of anything gone amiss, and has threatened to withdraw his support; and my laboratory assistants, Messrs. B----- and M-----, are hesitant to return to their tasks, amid the disorder.
I pray you not take me at my word and dismiss me thus, but that your curiosity compels you to investigate for yourselves; nullius in verba, gentlemen.
I remain faithfully,
Yr. obt. svt.