“I have seen them,” said Warner solidly, “I can assure you that all this is correct.”

“The most unmanly aspect, according to my feelings,” went on the American doctor, “is this perpetual deception of innocent women by a wild simulation of innocence. From almost every house where this great imaginative devil has been, he has taken some poor girl away with him; some say he’s got a hypnotic eye with his other queer features, and that they go like automata. What’s become of all those poor girls nobody knows. Murdered, I dare say; for we’ve lots of instances, besides this one, of his turning his hand to murder, though none ever brought him under the law. Anyhow, our most modern methods of research can’t find any trace of the wretched women. It’s when I think of them that I am really moved, Miss Hunt. And I’ve really nothing else to say just now except what Dr. Warner has said.”

“Quite so,” said Warner, with a smile that seemed moulded in marble⁠—“that we all have to thank you very much for that telegram.”