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"Very proud, too," said Godfrey, coming forward and suiting the action to the word.

There was a step on the walk outside, and Dr. Hinman appeared at the door.

"Well!" he cried, coming in, his face beaming. "There's no need for me to ask how my patient's doing!"

"I'm afraid you haven't got any patient, any more, doctor," I laughed.

"I'm afraid not," agreed Hinman. "I'll have to go back to my office and wait for another one. But before I go, Miss Vaughan, I want to hear the story. Mr. Lester promised me I should."

Miss Vaughan looked at me.

"We all want to hear it," I said; "how you came to suspect--how you got the glove--everything."

Her face grew sober, and a shadow flitted across it.

"Suppose we sit down," she said, and just then the sentry at the door saluted and Simmonds stepped into the room.

I saw him shake his head in answer to Godfrey's questioning look and knew that Silva had not been found. Then I brought him forward to Miss Vaughan and introduced him.

"Mr. Simmonds," I explained, "has been in charge of this case; and it was he who arranged to watch the house, for fear some harm would befall you...."

"I know," broke in Miss Vaughan, clasping Simmonds's hand warmly. "Annie told me all about it this morning. I don't know how to thank you, Mr. Simmonds."

"Oh, it wasn't me, especially," protested Simmonds, red to the ears. "It was really Godfrey there, and Mr. Lester. They were worried to death."

"We _were_ rather worried," Godfrey admitted; "especially after we saw you at that midnight fireworks party."

"You saw that?" she asked quickly; "but how...."

"Oh, we had seen the show every night for a week. It was its failure to come off last night which first told us something was wrong."

"Well," said Miss Vaughan, with a deep breath, sitting down again and motioning us to follow her example, "it seems to me that you have a story to tell, too! But I'll tell mine first. Where shall I begin?"

"Begin," I suggested, "at the moment when you first suspected the plot."

"That was when you were telling me of Fred's arrest. When you told me of the handkerchief and then of the finger-prints, I knew that someone was plotting against him. And then, quite suddenly, I thought of something."

"You jumped up," I said, "as though you were shot, and ran to the book-case over there and got down that album of finger-prints, and found that Swain's were missing. That seemed to upset you completely."

"It did; and I will tell you why. My father, for many years, had been a collector of finger-prints. All of his friends were compelled to contribute; and whenever he made a new acquaintance, he got his prints, too, if he could. He believed that one's character was revealed in one's finger-prints, and he studied them very carefully. It was a sort of hobby; but it was, for some reason, distasteful to Senor Silva. He not only refused to allow prints to be made of his fingers, but he pooh-poohed my father's theories, and they used to have some terrific arguments about it. One night, after a particularly hot argument, Senor Silva made the assertion that he could, by hypnotic suggestion, cause his servant Mahbub to reproduce any finger-prints he desired. Mahbub's finger-tips had been manipulated in some way, when he was a child, so that they showed only a series of straight lines."

"Yes," I said, "his prints were taken at the inquest."

"Father said that if Senor Silva could show him proof of that assertion, he would never look at finger-prints again. Senor Silva asked for a week in which to make a study of the prints, in order to impress them upon his memory; at the end of that time, the test was made. It was a most extraordinary one. Senor Silva, father, and I sat at the table yonder, under the light, with the book of prints before us. Mahbub was placed at a little table in the far corner, with his back to us, and Senor Silva proceeded to hypnotise him. It took only a moment, for he could hypnotise Mahbub by pointing his finger at him. He said Mahbub was a splendid subject, because he had hypnotised him hundreds of times, and had him