"Sure—didn't I tell you I fixed it up with the Chief? He knows we're on the square, Ted. The newspapers ran a peach of a story—whole front page. I gave 'em a picture of you I dug out of your room. You'll find yourself quite a local hero when you get out. There was some good sob stuff in it about Miss Claybourne nursing you back from the Valley of the Shadow. I don't believe her old man liked it."
"I should think not," I cried indignantly. "It was outrageous."
"Well, Ted, I don't believe you'll have to announce your engagement. It's saved you that much trouble. The paper said you were related to the English nobility, and hinted that Miss Claybourne was the true explanation of your coming to Deep Harbor. When the evening paper came out, the headline man boosted you up a notch higher—something about 'English peer's son nursed by local society girl'—say, you furnished 'em great stuff for three days."
"That must be the real reason 'mother' went to Asheville," I reflected.
"Ted, what I don't understand is how Prospero could slip anything like that over on you. As a chemist you ought to know enough to look out for fumes. How'd he do it? Hypnotize you?"
"Like you," I replied, "I guess I was a little careless. You see, oil of cassia has a pleasant smell—really delicious—it's just like cinnamon, you know. I thought I'd bluffed Prospero into doing what I wanted, and—I don't know—one doesn't expect murder and suicide."
Knowlton rubbed his chin. "Let's hear the whole yarn," he said. I told him everything that had happened from the time he left me that night until I lost consciousness. At the end, Knowlton grinned: "Ted, the Eagle reporter can beat you all hollow telling that story. Wait until you see what he says happened. But he didn't know about the wife in Cripple Creek—you've scored on the Eagle there. Now take a little advice from me, Ted. The next time you try to blackmail a paranoiac because he's a bigamist, don't do it."
"Blackmail him?"
"Well, bluff him, then. It's about the same thing. You turn those jobs over to me. If you tried to commit burglary some one would pick your pocket and steal your jimmy."
Dr. Sinclair interrupted us at this point. "I think we've talked business long enough for one day. It makes us a little feverish, I fear. Just a moment; we'll have a look at our temperature," and he clicked his thermometer into my jaws, Knowlton both winked and grinned at me.