
Transcriber's Note:
In the drizzle‑soaked streets of 1960s Arlington, a man in a pastel blue coat slips into a nondescript brick building. He isn’t a typical client; he’s a U.S. senator acting as a covert operative for a hidden government bureau that masquerades as the Society for Mystical and Metaphysical Research. The organization’s public face—crackpot lectures on auras and flying saucers—provides perfect cover for a team that monitors psychic phenomena and investigates sabotage.
Inside, the senator adopts the persona of “Swami Chandra,” dazzling the bemused receptionist with faux‑spiritual insights and a flawless reading of her aura. While the charade entertains the staff, his mind runs a silent, four‑dimensional net, scanning for threats and gathering intelligence on a mysterious sender named Brian Taggert. The scene blends dry humor with a subtle sense of danger, suggesting that the Society’s “research” may be the nation’s most discreet line of defense against unseen enemies.
Language
en
Duration
~54 minutes (52K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2009-10-20
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1927–1987
A prolific mid-century science fiction and fantasy writer, he became especially well known for the Lord Darcy stories, where detective fiction meets an alternate world shaped by magic. He also wrote heavily for the pulp magazines of the 1950s and 1960s and collaborated with other major SF writers.
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