We left him locked within a padded chamber in the house of Doctor Wesselhoff, who was a noted specialist in the treatment of diseases of the brain and nerves.
It will be remembered that Ray had been hypnotized into a profound slumber, from which he did not awake for many hours.
When at last he did arouse, he was both calmed and refreshed, while he was surprised to find that a small table, on which a tempting lunch was arranged, had been drawn close beside the lounge where he lay.
He was really hungry, and arose and began to partake with relish of the various viands before him, while, at the same time, he looked about the artfully constructed chamber he was in with no small degree of curiosity.
He remembered perfectly all that had occurred from the time he left his father's store in company with the charming Mrs. Vanderbeck until he had been so strangely over-powered with sleep by the influence of those masterful eyes, which had peered at him through an aperture in the wall.
As his mind went back over the strange incidents of the day he began to experience anew great anxiety over the loss of the rare stones which had been so cleverly stolen from him, and also regarding the fate in store for him.
He knew that the diamonds were in his pocket when the carriage stopped before the house, for he had not removed his hand from the package until Mrs. Vanderbeck discovered that her dress had been caught in the door of the carriage.
That very circumstance, he felt sure, was a part of the skillfully executed plot, and he was convinced that the woman must have robbed him during the moment when he had bent forward and tried to extricate it for her; while she must have concealed the package somewhere in the coupé while she was apparently trying to pin together the rent in her dress.
Then, as soon as he alighted, how adroitly she had filled his arms with her bundles and kept his attention so engaged that he did not think of the diamonds again, until the gentleman of the house appeared in the room where Mrs. Vanderbeck had left him.
Oh, how negligent he had been! He should not have released his hold upon that package under any circumstances, he told himself; and yet, he argued, if he had been ever so careful he might have been over-powered and the stones taken by violence, if the woman's cunning had failed to accomplish the desired object.