It was hardly the laugh of a sane person, and as Follansbee leaned forward he noted that the pupils of Stone’s eyes were fixed and round, a sign which the initiated always searches for in mental cases.
“That’s about it,” the visitor admitted, in his harsh voice. “The—the young man who spoke to me about you told me that you were the head of a big hospital, and I’ve just been there.”
Follansbee nodded.
“I understand,” he said. “I can assure you that your friend was quite correct, as you’ve doubtless found out for yourself, if you’ve been at St. Swithin’s. I’ve never been called handsome, but I haven’t found that a drawback, and I suspect that you didn’t come to see me for my looks. Did you have a pleasant voyage on the Cortez?”
Stone looked at him in open-mouthed amazement.
“What do you know about me?” he demanded. “You nearly floored me by calling me by my name, and now you——”
“Oh, that isn’t all I know about you,” Follansbee assured him maliciously. “I can tell you all about the Condor Mine and of your partner, Winthrop Crawford—or shall we call him your ex-partner? I know that you and he recently sold the Condor for a million, and that you have both come back to your old stamping ground after an absence of a quarter of a century or so. I know several other things, too, but we won’t speak of them just yet.”
Stone bit his lip and paled a little under his tan.
“Well, I’ll be hanged!” he muttered. “I suppose Floyd must have written to you about me. How in thunder you knew me, though, when I came in, is more than I can understand.”
“Who may ‘Floyd’ be?” queried Follansbee, as if he had never heard the name before.