The Blind Spot | Page 2

new concept at the
time." Hall, learning that Flint lived in the same city, sought him out, and they became
fast friends. Each stimulated the other. As Hall told me twenty years ago of the origin of
THE BLIND SPOT:
"One day after we had lunched together, I held my finger up in front of one of my eyes
and said: 'Homer, couldn't a story be written about that blind spot in the eye?' Not much
was said about it at the time, but four days later, again at lunch, I outlined the whole story
to him. I wrote the first eighteen chapters; Homer took up the tale as 'Hobart Fenton' and
wrote the chapters about the house of miracles, the living death, the rousing of Aradna's
mind, and so forth, up to 'The Man from Space,' where once again I took over."
To THE BLIND SPOT Hall contributed a great knowledge of history and anthropology,
while Flint's fortes were physics and medicine. Both had a great fund of philosophy at
their command.
When I met Hall (about four years older than Flint) he was in his fifties: a devil-may-care
old codger (old to a fifteen-year-old, that is) full of good humour and indulgence for a
youthful admirer who had journeyed far to meet him. He casually referred to his 600
published stories, and I carried away the impression of one who resembled both in output
and in looks that other fiction-factory of the time, Edgar Wallace.
Finally: Several years ago, before I knew anything about the present volume, I had an
unusual experience. (At that time I had no reason to think THE BLIND SPOT would ever
become available as a book, for the location of the heirs proved a Herculean task by itself;
publishers had long wanted to present this amazing novel but could not do so until I
located Mrs. Mae Hall and Mrs. Mabel Flindt.) While, unfortunately, I did not take
careful notes at the time, the gist of the occurrence was this:
I visited a friend whose hobby (besides reading fantasy) was the occult, who volunteered
to entertain me with automatic writing and the ouija-board. Now, I share Lovecraft's
scepticism towards the supernatural, regarding it as at best a means of amusement. When
the question arose of what spirits we should try to lure to our planchette, the names of
Lovecraft, Merritt, Hall, and Flint popped into my pixilated mind. So I set my fingers on

the wooden heart and, since my host was also a Flint admirer, we asked about Flint's fatal
accident. The ouija spelled out:
N-O A-C-C-I-D-E-N-T--R-O-B-B-E-R-Y
There followed something about being held up by a hitch-hiker. Then Hall (or at least
some energy-source other than my own conscious mind) came through too, and when I
asked if he had left any work behind he replied:
Y-E-S--T-H-E L-A-S-T G-O-D-L-I-N-G
Later I asked his son about this (without revealing the title) and Javen Hall told me of the
story his father had been plotting when he died: THE HIDDEN EMPIRE, or THE
CHILD OF THE SOUTHWIND. Whatever was pushing the planchette failed to inform
me that when I found Austin Hall's son and widow, they would put into my hands an
unknown, unpublished fantasy novel by Hall: THE HOUSE OF DAWN! Some day it
may appear in print.
Meanwhile you are getting understandably impatient to explore that unknown realm of
the Blind Spot. Be on your way, and bon voyage!
FORREST J ACKERMAN, Beverley Hills, Calif.

PROLOGUE
Perhaps it were just as well to start at the beginning. A mere matter of news.
All the world at the time knew the story; but for the benefit of those who have forgotten I
shall repeat it. I am merely giving it as I have taken it from the papers with no elaboration
and no opinion--a mere statement of facts. It was a celebrated case at the time and stirred
the world to wonder. Indeed, it still is celebrated, though to the layman it is forgotten.
It has been labelled and indexed and filed away in the archives of the profession. To
those who wish to look it up it will be spoken of as one of the great unsolved mysteries of
the century. A crime that leads two ways, one into murder--sordid, cold and calculating;
and the other into the nebulous screen that thwarts us from the occult.
Perhaps it is the character of Dr. Holcomb that gives the latter. He was a great man and a
splendid thinker. That he should have been led into a maze of cheap necromancy is, on
the face, improbable. He had a wonderful mind. For years he had been battering down the
scepticism that had bulwarked itself in the material.
He was a psychologist, and up to