“The deuce!” exclaimed Kennedy.  “He passed us out into an alley.  There is the street not twenty feet away.  The Pandit is a clever one, all right.”

It was now too late to see any of the other clairvoyants on our list, so that with this unceremonious dismissal we decided to conclude our investigations for the night.

The next morning we wended our way up into the Bronx, where one of the mystics had ensconced himself rather out of the beaten track of police protection, or persecution, one could not say which.  I was wondering what sort of vagary would come next.  It proved to be “Swami, the greatest clairvoyant, psychic palmist, and Yogi mediator of them all.”  He also stood alone in his power, for he asserted: 

Names friends, enemies, rivals, tells whom and when you will marry, advises you upon love, courtship, marriage, business, speculation, transactions of every nature.  If you are worried, perplexed, or in trouble come to this wonderful man.  He reads your life like an open book; he overcomes evil influences, reunites the separated, causes speedy and happy marriage with the one of your choice, tells how to influence any one you desire, tells whether wife or sweetheart is true or false.  Love, friendship, and influence of others obtained and a greater share of happiness in life secured.  The key to success is that marvellous, subtle, unseen power that opens to your vision the greatest secrets of life.  It gives you power which enables you to control the minds of men and women.

The Swami engaged to explain the “wonderful Karmic law,” and by his method one could develop a wonderful magnetic personality by which he could win anything the human heart desired.  It was therefore with great anticipation that we sought out the wonderful Swami and, falling into the spirit of his advertisement, posed as “come-ons” and pleaded to obtain this wonderful magnetism and a knowledge of the Karmic law—­at a ridiculously low figure, considering its inestimable advantages to one engaged in the pursuit of criminal science.  Naturally the Swami was pleased at two such early callers, and his narrow, half-bald head, long slim nose, sharp grey eyes, and sallow, unwholesome complexion showed his pleasure in every line and feature.

Rubbing his hands together as he motioned us into the next room, the Swami seated us on a circular divan with piles of cushions upon it.  There were clusters of flowers in vases about the room, which gave it the odour of the renewed vitality of the year.

A lackey entered with a silver tray of cups of coffee and a silver jar in the centre.  Talking slowly and earnestly about the “great Karmic law,” the Swami bade us drink the coffee, which was of a vile, muddy, Turkish variety.  Then from the jar he took a box of rock crystal containing a sort of greenish compound which he kneaded into a little gum—­gum tragacanth, I afterward learned,—­ and bade us taste.  It was not at all unpleasant to the taste, and as nothing happened, except the suave droning of the mystic before us, we ate several of the gum pellets.