“Acting,” mused De Medici slowly as his eyes watched her. “She pretends. She is awake, alive. She hesitates, uncertain what to do, what course to follow. Why? Ah, something to confess.”
His thought grew confused. She was acting, pretending a hypnoidal state and talking shrewdly, falling into the monotone familiar to the stage as denoting “trance condition.” De Medici felt convinced of this. Her monotone had betrayed her. At least, as her first words came he recalled instantly that this was the voice she had used in the part she had played a year ago.
“But I may be wrong,” he thought swiftly. “If it was real, if she were actually under hypnosis, her subconscious would utilize an easy voice—a voice without inflections or nuances and easy for its unaccustomed energies to operate....”
“Can’t you think of your name?” pressed Dr. Lytton. Her lips began again to move.
“Flor ... Flor ...” they pronounced.... “Florence Ballau.”
“A censorship operates,” murmured the pathologist. “The conscious mind lies on the threshold of this door and prevents it from opening. But she hesitated. A significant fact.”
His eyes held the wide, centered eyes of his subject.
“Do you remember the night your stepfather was killed?” he asked.
The lips parted and answered slowly, “Yes.”
“Will you tell the truth?” Dr. Lytton whispered.