“I don’t intend to let him ask you anything,” corrected Nick Carter. “But I hope you will make yourself look like him. Unless you do, you won’t be able to do anything in this case.”
Patsy went on with his making up. He whispered to himself that he’d “be a native Jap or bu’st,” and both Nick Carter and Chick knew it would be all right.
CHAPTER VIII.
UNDER THE SPELL.
When, at nine o’clock, Nick Carter gave final instructions to the Japanese-appearing young man, who looked at him soberly through his large spectacles, any one who knew Swagara would have been ready to swear that this was he.
Patsy Garvan had not promised more than he could achieve when he said he could make himself look like the young man from Tokyo who was expected to go to Ched Ramar’s house that night.[Pg 27]
By the deft use of grease paint, and the careful adjusting of a wig of coarse, straight black hair, he had changed his appearance so marvelously that there was nothing left of the broad, freckled face of Patsy Garvan. His features seemed to be pinched, like those of the Jap, and he had even made his gray eyes look a deep black.
It was a triumph of make-up, and Nick Carter secretly acknowledged it to himself. He did not tell Patsy what he thought. If he had, there was danger that his assistant would depend too much on his appearance, and perhaps grow careless in keeping up his character in other respects.
They had carried Swagara to an unoccupied bedroom at the top of the house, and, after undressing him and putting him into a set of pajamas owned by Patsy Garvan, had left him there in a deep sleep. Then they locked the door on the outside, to make assurance doubly sure.
“Not that there is any likelihood of his coming to his senses until I wake him,” remarked Nick Carter. “Ched Ramar is not the only person in Greater New York who has made a study of mental control. I know something about hypnotism myself.”
Swagara’s clothes fitted Patsy as if they had been made for him, and the gentle manner of the original owner went with the costume, so that there was practically no danger that Ched Ramar would suspect the substitution.