The doctor had arrived there about half an hour before, for his regular morning visit. To his consternation he had found the night nurse stretched out on Helga Lund’s bed, unconscious, and clad only in her undergarments.
The actress was nowhere to be found.
The anxious Lightfoot was of very different caliber from the prison physician at Sing Sing. He had recognized the nurse’s symptoms at once, and knew that she had been hypnotized.
He set to work at once to revive her and succeeded in doing so, after some little delay. As soon as she was in a condition to question, he pressed her for all the details she could give.
They were meager enough, but sufficiently disquieting. According to her story, a man whom she had supposed to be Lightfoot himself had gained entrance to the suite between nine and ten o’clock at night.
He had sent up Doctor Lightfoot’s name, and his appearance, when she saw him, had coincided with that of the attending physician. He had acted rather strangely, to be sure, and the nurse had been surprised at his presence at that hour, owing to the fact that Lightfoot had already made his two regular calls that day.
Before her surprise had had time to become full-fledged suspicion, however, the intruder had fixed her commandingly with his eyes and she had found herself powerless to resist the weakness of will which had frightened her.
She dimly remembered that he had approached her slowly, nearer and nearer, and that his gleaming eyes had seemed to be two coals of fire in his head.
That was all she recalled, except that she had felt her senses reeling and leaving her. She had known no more until Doctor Lightfoot broke the dread spell, almost twelve hours afterward.
She had met the bogus Lightfoot in one of the outer rooms of the suite, not in the presence of the actress. Miss Lund had been in her bedroom at the time, but had not yet retired.