Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 3 (1925-03).djvu/148

Rh and he remembered the purpose of their meeting.

Strange, he thought, that she had said no word about his illness, about stabbing him back there in his laboratory. Well, she had never known she did it, then. He was glad it had been as he suspected. What form of hypnotism her stepfather had used on her he could not tell, but he would be happy if she never knew how close she had come to murdering him.

"Listen, Joan," he said, "I am in disguise because I am trying to find evidence against your stepfather, Professor Maquarri."

Joan started in terror, but his smile reassured her.

"I have discovered what it was that troubled you—that baffled us both—about your mental illness in New York. Your stepfather has been hypnotizing you!"

"No, no, no! I will not have it!" cried Joan. "It isn't possible!"

"You are right," answered Olivier firmly. "It isn't possible now that you know. Now that you are warned, when you feel his influence, you must fight it. Simply fight it back, that is all."

"Oh, but I am afraid," Joan whimpered, huddling back against the tree. "I have always feared him, but this—this I cannot stand!"

"Be brave, my darling," urged Olivier. "So much depends on your bravery during the next twenty-four hours. Quinn and I are ready to tighten the net. Another day, if we are lucky, will see the evidence against him in our hands, and then will come the warrant for his arrest."

"But tonight! Tonight—tonight I cannot stand—", stammered Joan, holding her head distractedly.

"Listen to me, darling. Do you think I would leave you here if there were any danger? I happen to know that Professor Maquarri is going back to Plymouth tonight. Quinn found it out earlier in the day. Well, we must simply trace him to the place in Plymouth where he hides, and the rest is merely a matter of taking out a warrant for his arrest, or I am much mistaken."

Joan listened dazedly as he explained the situation. She was still afraid, but she tried to summon the courage her lover demanded of her.

"Let us go nearer the edge of the grove," she whispered, "where we can watch the windows of Uncle Hubert's study. When the lights go out there it will mean that he—that my stepfather—is leaving. Then it will be time for you to start ahead of him and find Pedro with your waiting horse."

time later as Olivier rode down the long road to Plymouth, lined with tall coconut palms, he heard the faint crunching of the wheels of Maquarri's carriage behind him. He decided to keep on at the same pace for a while and let the professor gain gradually on him. Sooner or later he would have to pass him on the road, and then he could follow and find out his hiding place in the town.

For several miles things went on in this manner, the hunchback's carriage gradually shortening the distance between him and the gray-haired officer on horseback. Suddenly, however, it occurred to Maquarri that although the man on horseback had not once looked back, he was nevertheless measuring his pace to keep with the slower pace of the vehicle behind him. Was the man a thug, who would turn at the right moment, at the loneliest part of the road, and gallop back to attack him? Or could it be that one of the government officers was on his trail?

They were within a quarter of a mile of the town, and the road took a diagonal turn before following the cliffs and the sea. Maquarri was just trying to make up his mind about the horseman in front of him when another rider rounded the turn of the