Dr Barrister

Dr Barrister is an anthropology professor at Ruxton University and a returning source of expertise for the Three Investigators. When Bob Andrews seeks an explanation for a shadow-person associated with Fenton Prentice’s apartment, Barrister helps redirect the inquiry: he takes the report seriously as a possible psychic occurrence, but does not claim to be an expert on ghosts.

Academic Background and Expertise

Barrister’s relevant authority comes from his knowledge of witchcraft and the occult, which had helped the Three Investigators before. His academic specialities are narrower than that broad reputation might suggest: he identifies himself as an expert on the folklore of the Maori tribes and on witchcraft as practised in the Caribbean and elsewhere. The distinction matters when Bob brings him an apparently supernatural case. Barrister is open to unusual claims, but draws a boundary between the subjects he studies and the phenomenon Bob describes.

Response to the Shadow-Person

After Bob decides to consult him about the possibility that Sonny Elmquist can walk through walls, he reaches Barrister’s office at Ruxton University by cab, arriving about twenty minutes after making the call. Barrister’s usually bland face is bright with excitement, and he immediately asks what mystic phenomena the Three Investigators have uncovered. Bob explains the shadow-person’s visit to Fenton Prentice’s apartment.

Barrister then qualifies his initial enthusiasm. He says the report does not fall within his own field and calls it a possible true psychic occurrence. Although he believes in many things other people do not accept as true, he explicitly says that he does not believe in ghosts. His position is therefore neither a simple endorsement of a haunting nor a dismissal of Bob’s account: he distinguishes the reported experience from a ghostly explanation and looks for someone better placed to assess it.

Connection with Professor Lantine

Barrister knows a colleague whose mind is open to the subject and offers to take Bob to meet her. He identifies Professor Eugenia Lantine as the head of Ruxton University’s parapsychology department. His description of the university’s divided opinion about her is wry: he says that half the faculty think she is loony, while the other half fear she can read their minds.

They find Lantine in a small brick building behind the gymnasium, reading letters in her office. Barrister greets her familiarly, remarks on her fascinating mail, and introduces Bob as a young member of a private-investigation firm whose story may interest her. The introduction supplies the practical help Bob came for: Barrister cannot explain the alleged apparition himself, but he connects the investigation to a colleague whose discipline addresses psychic claims.

Character and Narrative Role

Barrister’s brief appearance establishes him as intellectually curious without making him credulous. His excitement at hearing of a new mystery coexists with an explicit limit on his expertise, and that limit shapes his most useful action: referral rather than speculation. His earlier help with occult questions gives Bob reason to seek him out, while his measured distinction between psychic phenomena and ghosts prevents that established reputation from becoming a claim that he can solve every supernatural puzzle. In the investigation, he serves as a credible bridge from the boys’ report to university parapsychology.