"You see, old man?" cried Smith eagerly. "You see?"
But I shook my head weakly.
"I shot you," I said. "It is impossible that I could have missed."
"Mr. Smith has placed me in possession of the facts," interrupted McCabe, "and I can outline with reasonable certainty what took place. Of course, it's all very amazing, utterly fantastic in fact, but I have met with almost parallel cases in Egypt, in India, and elsewhere in the East: never in London, I'll confess. You see, Dr. Petrie, you were taken into the presence of a very accomplished hypnotist, having been previously prepared by a stiff administration of maagûn. You are doubtless familiar with the remarkable experiments in psycho-therapeutics conducted at the Salpêtrier in Paris, and you will readily understand me when I say that, prior to your recovering consciousness in the presence of the mandarin Ki-Ming, you had received your hypnotic instructions.
"These were to be put into execution either at a certain time (duly impressed upon your drugged mind) or at a given signal…."
"It was a signal," snapped Smith. "Ki-Ming stood in the court below and looked up at the window," I objected.
"In that event," snapped Smith, "he would have spoken softly, through the letter-box of the door!"
"You immediately resumed your interrupted trance," continued McCabe, "and by hypnotic suggestion impressed upon you earlier in the evening, you were ingeniously led up to a point at which, under what delusion I know not, you fired at Mr. Smith. I had the privilege of studying an almost parallel case in Simla, where an officer was fatally stabbed by his khitmatgar (a most faithful servant) acting under the hypnotic prompting of a certain fakîr whom the officer had been unwise enough to chastise. The fakîr paid for the crime with his life, I may add. The khitmatgar shot him, ten minutes later."
"I had no chance at Ki-Ming," snapped Smith. "He vanished like a shadow. But has has played his big card and lost! Henceforth he is a hunted man; and he knows it! Oh!" he cried, seeing me watching him in bewilderment, "I suspected some Lama trickery, old man, and I stuck closely to the arrangements proposed by the mandarin, but kept you under careful observation!"
"But, Smith—I shot you! It was impossible to miss!"