said, that the
district attorney's office would wish to confer with some of them
privately, in connection with charges to be brought against William
Fitzgerald Grady--which, so far as the police had been able to
establish, was Dr. Ormond's real name. However, their association with
the Institute of Insight would not be made public, and any proceedings
would be carried out with the discretion that could be fully expected
by blameless citizens of their status in the community.

They were fortunate, Cavender went on, in another respect. Probably
none of them had been aware of just how much Grady had milked from the
group chiefly through quiet private contributions and donations during
the two years he was running the Institute. The sum came to better
than two hundred thousand dollars. Grady naturally had wasted none of
this in "research" and he was not a spendthrift in other ways.
Cavender was, therefore, happy to say that around two thirds of this
money was known to be still intact in various bank accounts, and that
it would be restored eventually to the generous but misled donors.

Dr. Al's ex-students were beginning to look both chastened and very
much relieved. Cavender briefly covered a few more points to eliminate
remaining doubts. He touched on Grady's early record as a confidence
man and blackmailer, mentioned the two terms he had spent in prison
and the fact that for the last eighteen years he had confined himself
to operations like the Institute of Insight where risks were less. The
profits, if anything, had been higher because Grady had learned that
it paid off, in the long run, to deal exclusively with wealthy
citizens and he was endowed with the kind of personality needed to
overcome the caution natural to that class. As for the unusual
experiences about which some of them might be now thinking, these,
Cavender concluded, should be considered in the light of the fact that
Grady had made his living at one time as a stage magician and
hypnotist, working effectively both with and without trained
accomplices.

The lecture had gone over very well, as he'd known it would. The
ex-students left for their homes, a subdued and shaken group, grateful
for having been rescued from an evil man's toils. Even Mrs. Folsom,
who had announced at one point that she believed she had a heart
attack coming on, recovered sufficiently to thank Cavender and assure
him that in future she would take her problems only to a reliable
p