“Just a moment,” called Barnard, and Calderon Fordyce paused undecidedly. “I’ll not keep you waiting until my trial for an accurate account of my business transactions with your daughter,” and he laughed mockingly. “I needed money; always have needed it. Miss Pauline,” indicating her with a flippant wave of his hand, “told me Janet was easily hypnotized, and it gave me the idea of compelling her to steal for me. I had her practice by picking up trifles; then came Tom Nichol’s coin, then money and jewelry. I netted quite a tidy sum out of our silent partnership....” He stepped back to avoid Duncan’s furious leap toward him. Potter promptly stepped between the two men, and in the confusion Kathryn Allen slipped from the room.
“Be quiet, Duncan,” commanded Potter. “Finish your statement, Barnard.”
“There is very little to add,” said the latter, placing the desk carefully between himself and Duncan. “Sometimes Janet passed me the jewelry, sometimes she lost it before she could get it to me. Your wife’s necklace was a rich haul”—J. Calhoun-Cooper smiled wryly. “I realized that if Janet was caught stealing, she would only be thought a kleptomaniac. She was tractable enough until I tried to make her turn against Tom Nichols; then she grew stubborn.”
“Hypnotic subjects often rebel against injuring those they love,” remarked Potter thoughtfully.
“She would have obeyed me in the end,” and Barnard’s dark eyes flamed in sudden baffled rage. “We might have gone on indefinitely, but I grew to hate the influence you, Duncan Fordyce, exerted over Marjorie”—Barnard’s manner betrayed genuine emotion. “I planned to get her away from here. Miss Pauline had told me when I accompanied her home from the Charity Ball, that she suspected Marjorie of stealing her mother’s pearl necklace, and I suggested that she call here and charge Marjorie with the theft, and also told her to ask Janet what she knew of the theft. She said she would go and see Mrs. Fordyce this morning, so I made an appointment to see Janet before Miss Pauline got here. I saw Janet alone, and by auto-suggestion forced her to testify against Marjorie.” A horrified gasp escaped Marjorie, and for the first time he turned and looked fully at her. “I loathed poverty and I loved you,” he said, and there was infinite pathos in his charmingly modulated voice. “No other woman counted,” he stumbled in his speech, his passion mastering him. “My punishment lies in losing you. Have you no word for me?” stretching out his hands imploringly. But Marjorie bowed her head, unable to speak. Potter, watching her closely, saw she was on the point of collapse.
“Go and call the police, Duncan,” he began, then stopped speaking as the room was plunged in darkness.
Barnard, taking his hand from the electric light switch, sprang noiselessly out of the room and raced down the hall, Duncan at his heels. He gained the front steps by a narrow margin, and one leap carried him through the open door of the waiting taxi-cab. Duncan stood watching the disappearing rear lights of the taxi-cab with mixed emotions, then turned on his heel and re-entered the house. He met the three older men in the hall, and they accompanied him back to the Chinese room. Joe turned from the open window on their appearance.
“Did Kathryn go with Barnard?” he asked in a voice he strove to make steady.
“Yes,” answered Duncan.
J. Calhoun-Cooper stepped forward at the sight of his son’s grief-stricken face, and laid an affectionate hand on his shoulder.