the car swerved and turned abruptly in, evidently at a gateway, for we
curved about up a graveled driveway--I could hear it crunching beneath
the wheels--and came to a grinding stop before the door. They helped
me out of the car, up some shallow stone steps and across the
threshold.

"I was led down a thickly carpeted hall and up a single long flight of
stairs, to a door just at its head. We entered; the door closed softly
behind us; and the bandage was whipped from my eyes. There was only a
low night-light burning in the room, but I made out the outlines of
the furniture. There was a great bed over in the corner, with a
motionless figure lying upon it.

"'There's your patient, Doc; go ahead,' my burly friend said, and
accordingly I approached the bed, asking at the same time for more
light. The young man was unconscious, and in answer to a question of
mine the attendant who had sat at the head of the bed as we entered
informed me that he had been in a complete state of coma since he had
been brought there, several days before.

"I remembered the description in your letter of the subject for whom
you were searching, and I fancied, in spite of the bandages which
swathed his head, that I recognized him in the young man before me.
The lights flashed on full in answer to my request, and on a sudden
decision I drew the watch camera from my pocket, took the patient's
wrist between my thumb and finger as if to ascertain his pulse, and
snapped his picture. The result was a fortunate chance, for I did not
dare focus deliberately, with the eyes of the attendant and the three
men who had accompanied me, all directed at my movements.

"Then I gave the patient a thorough examination. I found a fracture at
the base of the brain--not necessarily fatal, unless cerebral
meningitis sets in, but quite serious enough. He was still bleeding a
little from the nose and ears. I washed them out, and packed the ears
with sterile gauze, leaving instructions that a specially prepared ice
cap be placed at once upon his head and kept there. That was all which
could be done at that time, but the patient should have constant,
watchful attention. He must either have suffered a severe backward
fall, or received a violent blow at the base of the skull, to have
sustained such an injury.

"When I had finished, they blindfolded me again, led me from the room,
and conveyed me home in the same manner in which I had come, with the
possible exception th