“But how in thunder——”
“Very easily. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but it is evident that Grantley hypnotized him through the bars and then commanded him to unlock the door and come inside. There is nothing in hypnotism to interfere; on the contrary, that would be the easiest and surest thing to do, under the circumstances. Grantley is too clever to try any of the old, outworn devices—such as feigning sickness, for instance—in order to get a keeper in his power. All that was necessary was for him to catch Bradley’s eye. The rest was as easy as rolling off a log. When he got our friend inside, he put him to sleep, took his keys and his outer clothing, and then—good-by, Sing Sing! It’s rather strange that he succeeded in getting away without discovery of the deception, but he evidently did; or else he bribed somebody. You might look into that possibility, if you think best. The supposition isn’t essential, however, for accident, or good luck, might easily have aided him. As for the means he used to cover his trail after leaving the vicinity of the prison, we need not waste any time over that question. Fortunately, we have hit upon his trail down the river, and all that remains to do is to keep on it, in the right direction, until we come up with him. It may be a matter of hours or days or months, but Grantley is going to be brought back here before we’re through. You can bank on that, gentlemen. And when I return him to you it will be up to you to take some extraordinary precautions to see that he doesn’t hypnotize any more keepers.”
“I guess that’s right, Carter,” agreed Warden Kennedy, tugging at his big mustache. “Bolts and bars are no good to keep in a man like that, who can make anybody let him out just by looking at him and telling him to hand over the keys. I suppose I’d have done it, too, if I’d been in Bradley’s place.”
“Exactly!” the detective responded, with a laugh. “You couldn’t have helped yourself. Don’t worry, though. I think we can keep him from trying any more tricks of that sort, when we turn him over to you again.”
“Hanged if I see how, unless we give him a dose of solitary confinement, in a dark cell, and have the men blindfold themselves when they poke his food in through the grating.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Nick assured the warden as he prepared to leave. “We can get around it easier than that.”
Half an hour later Nick was on his way back to New York City.
He was not as light-hearted or confident as he had allowed Warden Kennedy to suppose, however.
The fact that Grantley had turned to that mysterious and terrifying agency, hypnotism, with all of its many evil possibilities, caused him profound disquiet.
Already the fugitive had used his mastery of the uncanny force in two widely different ways: He had escaped from prison with startling ease by means of it, and then, not content with that, he had hypnotized a famous actress in the midst of one of her greatest triumphs—for Nick had known all along that Helga Lund had yielded to hypnotic influence.