"McCann," I said, "bring the girl into my office. Wait until I get rid of anyone who may be downstairs."
I went downstairs, McCann and Ricori following. No one was there. I placed on my desk a development
of the Luys mirror, a device used first at the Salpetriere in Paris to induce hypnotic sleep. It consists of
two parallel rows of small reflectors revolving in opposite directions. A ray of light plays upon them in
such a manner as to cause their surfaces alternately to gleam and darken. A most useful device, and one
to which I believed the girl, long sensitized to hypnotic suggestion, must speedily succumb. I placed a
comfortable chair at the proper angle, and subdued the lights so that they could not compete with the
hypnotic mirror.
I had hardly completed these arrangements when McCann and another of Ricori's henchmen brought in
the girl. They placed her in the easy chair, and I took from her lips the cloth with which she had been