The white-capped attendant at the hospital led us up a flight of broad, easy steps, to a large sunny room where convalescents were allowed to try their new strength. Here "our man" was sitting in a large arm-chair, wrapped in a blanket.

"He simply wouldn\'t stay in bed," the nurse explained in an undertone. "He says he must go home, but he really isn\'t strong enough to walk across the room without help."

"Is there anything the matter with him? Beyond exhaustion, I mean," I asked. Jean had run across the room and was bending over the old man with a coaxing concern in her face that was charming. She was like an elfin sprite trying to express sympathy for some poor, huddled-up toad.

"That\'s enough," said the nurse crisply. "No, there doesn\'t seem to be anything else wrong. But it will take a week at least before he is able to take care of himself. His mind will grow stronger as he does." "Isn\'t his mind right?"

"You can talk to him," she said, non-committally. "Don\'t tire him." And with that she left us.

Jean came running back to meet me and put me properly into touch with things.

"He isn\'t happy," she explained hastily. "You must be cheerful, and not bother him.--Here is Mr. Hilton who has come to see you, Mr. Jordan. Now you can have a nice little talk with him." Her tone indicated that this was indeed a privilege which might make up for many slings from unkind fortune.

Mr. Jordan made an impatient gesture as though he would throw off the blanket which was binding his arms.

"What am I doing here?" he asked querulously. "I want to get away. How did I get here?"

"You fainted away on the street, Mr. Jordan," I answered. "We brought you here to have you taken care of. Of course you may go as soon as you are able to. Do you want to go home? Wouldn\'t it be best for some member of your family or some friend to come for you?"

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He was Diavolo\'s partner," he said vehemently. Page 137.>

He let his chin sink upon his breast, and closed his eyes. Jean telegraphed me a look of comment, interpretation and exhortation. I half guessed what she meant, but I was too keen on my own trail to consider making things easy for the old man.

"I believe you came to Saintsbury to look up Alfred Barker," I said, quietly.

He did not answer or open his eyes, but I felt that his silence was now alert instead of dormant, and presently a slow shiver ran over his frame.

"It was a shock to you to find that he was dead, was it not?"

He roused himself to look at me. "I can\'t get at Diavolo except through him. He was Diavolo\'s partner," he said vehemently.

"I am quite ready to believe that," I said heartily. But Jean had the good sense not to be frivolous. She was smoothing the old man\'s hand softly.

"Who is Diavolo?" she asked simply.

"If I knew! He was careful enough not to give his name." He was trembling with excitement and his voice broke in his throat.

I began to see that this was a story which I must get, and also that I should have to get it piecemeal from his distracted mind.

"Where did you meet Diavolo?" I asked.

"Why, at Eden Valley."

The name struck an echo in my brain. Of what was Eden Valley reminiscent?

"What was he doing there?" I asked, questioning at hazard.

The old man clutched the arms of his chair with his hands and leaned forward to look into my face. "You never heard of him?"

"Not a word."

He nodded heavily and sank back in his chair. "He gave a show," he said dully. "In the Opery House. To show off how he could hypnotize people." A slow tear gathered in his eye.

I began to get a coherent idea. "Oh, Diavolo was the name assumed for show purposes by a man who went around giving exhibitions of hypnotism. Is that it?"

"Yes."

"What did Alfred Barker have to do with it?"

"He was with him. He was the man that engaged the Opery House and done the rest of the business. Diavolo kep\' in the background. Nobody knows who Diavolo was, but Alfred Barker left a trail I could follow." Excitement had made his voice almost strong, and brought back a momentary energy.

"What did you want to follow him for?"

His face worked with passion. "To get back my thousand!" he cried, clenching his trembling hands.

"How did he get your thousand?"

"He got it from the bank, on a check he made me sign while I was hypnotized!"

Suddenly I remembered,--Eden Valley, 32.00 plus 1000. That was a part of the memoranda in Barker\'s note-book. A memorandum of the profits of their trip! But I must understand it better.

"Did you let Diavolo hypnotize you?" I asked.

"I didn\'t think he could," the old farmer admitted, hanging his head. "I thought my will was too strong for him to get control of me. He called for people to come up from the audience and I laughed with the rest to see him make fools of the boys,--making them eat tallow candles for bananas, and scream when he threw a cord at them and said it was a snake, and things like that. But I was mighty proud of my strong will, and the boys dared me to go up and let him have a try at me, so I went."

"And did he make you sign a check?" I asked, incredulously.

"Not then. That was too public. He knew his business too well for that. But he got control of me." There was something pitiable in the man\'s trembling admission. "He hypnotized me before I knew it, and when I came to, I was standing on a chair in the middle of the stage, trying to pull my pants up to my knees, because he had told me that I was an old maid, and there was a mouse on the floor, and the boys out in front were rolling over with laughter."

"That was very unkind," said Jean, indignantly.

"I was ashamed and I was mad," the old man continued, "and I knew the boys would make everlasting fun of me, so next day I went up to see him at the hotel.............