They were gone, and only for this telephone
call, I should have lost the trail entirely. I found you there, and this
fellow Hobart with you."
"But, Captain West, I never saw you; I never left the room in the third
story where I was locked in, except when they took me away in a machine
to the yacht."
"You dropped a note in the alley, enclosed in a silver knife?"
"Yes, I did. I dared not hope it would be found, but I took the chance.
Did you find it?"
"Sexton did, and that was what brought me here."
"But it is all so strange," she exclaimed despairingly. "How could I have
done all these things, been in all these places, and yet know nothing
about it? Could I have been drugged? or influenced in some way by those
people? I have read there is such a power--where one person can make
another obey absolutely, with no knowledge of what he is doing; what do
they call that?"
"Hypnotism. I have seen it cut some odd capers; but I do not believe you
were either hypnotized or drugged. Good God; why did I not think of this
solution before? I must have been blind; that was not you; I can recall a
hundred little things now to convince me."
"What is it you mean?"
"Another woman played your part; a woman most wonderfully like you, even
to the voice. There is no other solution of the problem. And that reveals
the plan of robbery--to get you out of the way, and then have her take
the fortune. Who would ever suspect such a fraud?"
She sat silent, motionless, apparently unable at once to grasp all the
meaning in his words.
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