With every nerve on the alert, Nick Carter waited.
He was prepared to interfere at once, whatever the cost, if he should feel Stone was in any immediate peril; but he was curious to hear and see all he could. Suddenly a thin voice pierced the silence.
“You are well now,” it announced. “You feel your strength returning.”
It was Stephen Follansbee who spoke, and the slow incisiveness of the tone seemed to cut through the stillness of the room like a knife.
“Yes. I feel it. I’m much better now—almost well.”
Nick hardly recognized Stone’s voice, so changed was it. It sounded thin and vague, as though the man were hardly sure of himself, as if he had been in solitary confinement for months.
It was by no means the first time that the detective had witnessed a hypnotist at work, but seldom had he experienced a more dramatic thrill than he did at that moment. The uncanny power gave him the creeps.
“To-morrow you will get up and go back to the Hotel Windermere,” Follansbee went on. His eyes never left those of his victim, and he was speaking slowly and distinctly, so that the entranced brain would follow each detail.
“Remember that to-morrow is Monday,” he said. “The bank people will want to see you, and you must tell them that the check for four hundred and fifty thousand dollars is quite correct—that it covers not only professional fees, but a business transaction, the nature of which you are not at liberty to reveal.”