"The nurse! Name of a dog! Then I fail to see that the matter is of the slightest importance one way or the other."
"On the contrary, Monsieur, it is of the greatest importance. May I ask whether you are, by any chance, familiar with the properties of an Eastern drug, made from hemp, and generally known as hashish?"
The Prefect sat up suddenly, and clapped his hands to his knees. "Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed. "Now I begin to understand."
"More than I do," said Mr. Stapleton.
"The cigarettes were drugged, that is all," went on Duvall. "The men who planned this thing went to work very carefully. They ascertained, through François, that Mary Lanahan was in the habit, no doubt on the sly, of using cigarettes. I discovered the fact, myself, before I left New York. They also learned that she smoked the same brand as Mrs. Stapleton herself used. No doubt she helped herself from Mrs. Stapleton's supply. They therefore secured, also through François, a box of these cigarettes, and had them heavily drugged with hashish. The box of drugged cigarettes was substituted, later on, for her own."
"But," exclaimed Mr. Stapleton, "how could Mary Lanahan swear that she turned away but a moment—that no one came near her?"
"When Mary Lanahan testified that, she believed that she was telling the truth. The hashish had simply destroyed her conception of the passage of time."
"Is that its effect?"
"Yes. It produces a delightful languor, a stupor in which all realization of the passage of time ceases. Sometimes, to those who use the drug, it may apparently require hours to walk a few yards. To make a momentary movement of the hand may seem to take many minutes. On the other hand, in the stupor which the drug induces, hours may be spent in the contemplation of a flower, a bit of scenery, the page of a book, without any realization on the part of the user that more than a few seconds have elapsed. That is what happened to Mary Lanahan. She inhaled a few puffs of the cigarette, heavily charged with the drug; without knowing, of course, of its presence. She probably passed at once into a state of stupor which may have extended over fifteen minutes or more. She was not unconscious. She sat upon the grass, looking off toward the distant sky, in a waking dream, not unlike a trance, in which all the world about her—the world of sound, of movement—had simply ceased to exist. She was to all intents and purposes unconscious of what was going on about her. The kidnapper, whom I strongly suspect to be François, merely strolled up behind her, picked up the boy, and walked off with him."
The detective's listeners looked at him in astonishment. Presently Mr. Stapleton spoke. "Why do you think it was François?" he asked.