Ramsey Aickman -

He found it easily enough. The brickwork was real. The lichen was real. But where the door should have been, there was only a shallow recess, as if something had been carefully removed. And in the recess, pressed into the damp mortar, was a single button. Mother-of-pearl. From a cream-colored dress.

: Owner and head mortician of the Aickman Funeral Home in the 1920s. ramsey aickman

To understand the weight of the connection, you have to understand the shadow cast by Frank Ramsey. He is one of history’s great "what ifs." A giant of a man (both physically and intellectually) who wandered through Cambridge in the 1920s, translating Wittgenstein, debating Keynes, and solving problems in probability that we are still catching up with. He found it easily enough

Mr. Pargeter slipped it into his pocket. He did not know why. That evening, he took the 5:47 again. The door did not reappear. Nor the next day, nor the next. But where the door should have been, there

: He used a young boy named Jonah as a medium to conduct séances for famous guests, including Harvard professors.