“That fiend is slowly killing him!” It was Sunday evening, just after eight o’clock, and the little ward in which Nick Carter found himself was deserted save for its two inmates. On his bed lay James Stone, motionless and mute, just as he had lain there all through the day. Over him bent Nick, and there was a pitying look in the detective’s eyes as they rested on the white face.  
Dropping his hand gently on Stone’s eyelids, he lifted them and looked at the set, fixed pupils. They were small, almost the size of pin heads.
 
“There isn’t the slightest doubt about it,” the detective decided, “this man is under some powerful narcotic, which means that Follansbee has his own reasons for keeping him thus. I’d give a good deal to know just what is at the bottom of it, but, after all, it doesn’t greatly matter. I know that Follansbee means no good, and I’m here to see that he fails; that’s the important thing.”
 
During the day Nick had kept to his room, and the nurse, a gentle little woman, had decided that he was a model patient. He had, however, ventured to make a few inquiries about the inanimate man in the next bed, and the nurse had given him several details.
 
“He came from St. Swithin’s,” she said. “Doctor Follansbee—the head there you know—is looking after him, so he must consider it a very important case. The doctor says that he doesn’t expect the patient to awaken for at least another twenty-four hours. He’s in an unusual sort of coma.”
 
There was nothing to be gained by revealing his suspicions to the nurse; therefore Nick kept his peace. He knew, however, that Follansbee would have to return again to see the man, and it was for that visit he was waiting—waiting with an impatience which proved the hold the case had upon him.
 
Another hour passed before Stephen Follansbee’s voice warned him that the long-looked-for moment had arrived. The detective had been sitting up much of the time, but at the sound he stripped off his bath robe and jumped into bed, the nurse being absent. In a few seconds the covers were pulled up to his chin and his face was turned to the wall.
 
It would have taken a clever observer to notice that on the wall, almost level with his head, hung a small mirror. It had been tilted at such an angle that the detective, although he had his back to the bed occupied by Stone, could see everything that happened there.
 
The door opened, and he heard a soft footfall. He lay quite still, breathing easily and regularly.
 
There was only one light in the room, a shaded bulb, which was suspended above a small table that stood close to Stone’s bed. The rest of the little ward was in semidarkness.
 
“Another patient?”
 
The detective recognized an undercurrent of disagreeable surprise, if not of anger, in Follansbee’s voice............