side, a thieves'
rendezvous. And you talked with me there; tried to get me to quit
following you. You surely haven't forgotten that already?"

She dropped her face wearily into her hands, and her voice
sounded listless.

"I--I almost believe you are the crazy one, Captain West. I swear I have
never knowingly met, or spoken to you since we drove to that cottage on
Sunday. I cannot believe what you say."

"Yet it is true, every word true"; he asserted stoutly. "Why else should
I be here? You returned with us to 'Fairlawn,' and we chatted together
pleasantly all the way. Later you seemed to change, and discharged me
rather rudely. Then Percival Coolidge was killed--shot down by an
assassin, not a suicide. I know because I found the body. You were at the
inquest, and testified. I saw you with my own eyes. The next day you
discharged Sexton, and later he learned, and reported to me, that some
one called you on the phone from Wray Street, and wanted you to come over
there at once."

"Was that why you went there?"

"Yes; I felt something was wrong; the killing of Percival Coolidge had
aroused my suspicions; and I sought to learn who those people were you
had visited in the cottage. 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