Free Telepathic Pick-up by Jr. Samuel M. Sargent

The gripping story — worthy of a Poe — is based in a degree, upon radio. A machine developed by the hero of the story, can be tuned in to the wave-lengths of any given person's thoughts, thus giving the possessor a wonderful power. And this story, with its tragic termination, tells not only of the possibilities of radio in the future, but also touches on — and elaborates — the fantastic theory that the electric shock sustained by the human system while in the electric choir, does not really kill, but simply puts the victim into a state of unconsciousness with a temporary cessation of organic function. But this is not a mere set scientific treatise on the possibilities of the future for radio or capital punishment, it is a story full of human interest, though not without a touch of the ghastly. Anyhow, you will be glad to have read it. 

The Telepathic Pick-Up
    Samuel M. Sargent Jr.
    There sounded a wild scream. Dr. Spaulding leaped upon the machine, gibbering incoherently, end smashed the mechanism into thousand pieces. 
    There was a strange light in Doctor Spaulding's eyes. His face was immobile, but the lines were set in an expression of jubilance and triumph. "Come on, Brant," he said quietly, "I have something interesting to show you." 
    With that remark, he wheeled, and strode into the gloom of the hall. I followed, and our footsteps echoed with hollowness in that spacious, blank space. 
    I had always felt a certain timidity when with Doctor Spaulding. We had been friends for years, and yet strangers. His was a personality which had seemingly been fashioned for dominance over me. I had never been able, in our long acquaintance, to raise my head squarely, and hold the gaze of his eyes. My fount of conversation dried up beneath the queer influence of him, and I was re served and stumbling in my speech. 
    I admired, with no malice, his genius — his eccentric and versatile genius that had placed him at the head of his profession, had made him an eminent scientist, and had allowed him to conquer the field of electricity. He had performed, during his career, many marvelous feats of surgery, had made important advances in both astronomy and chemistry, and had given countless electrical inventions to the world. Of late years, he had devoted himself entirely to electrical research. 
    I had seen him but once in the last year and a half. At that meeting he had hinted to me that he was at work on a radio apparatus that would startle the world. 
    "It won't be called radio though, Brant," he had told me with a dry, rasping chuckle. "It shall have another name. When it is finished, I shall explain it all first to you." 
    So when I received his phone call I concluded that he had completed the invention, and I was burning with curiosity as I followed him down the hall. 
    He turned into the living room. That chamber was no darker, no emptier, and no more gloomy than any other room in his house, but I loathed it even more than the other. For always as I entered, I was brought face to face with a portrait of the doctor's brother, and the tragedy was forcibly recalled to me. It had been many years ago, but time had not dulled it in my friend's mind, nor my own. I could well remember that night, and Tom Spaulding's flight, a jump ahead of the law, because he was wanted for embezzlement of fifty thousand dollars. The disgrace of it had crushed the doctor, and because it was his beloved brother, the blow was even greater. It had aged and changed him, and sent him into the life of a recluse. That it was responsible for his many invaluable discoveries was probable, but not any less regrettable, at least to me. As for Tom Spaulding, we had not heard of him since that night, but perhaps that was just as well, for we learned later that he had sunk to the lowest level of the underworld. 
    I gave the picture as fleeting a glance as possible, but the doctor stood for a long while gazing up at it. He seemed lost in reverie. At last he