American Sherlocks by Nick Rennison (reading like a writer .TXT) 📕

The whole interior of the room was revealed to him. Around the walls were seated three young men of professional appearance. Nick recognized them all. They were Doctor Chester, Doctor Willard, and Doctor Graves, three of Grantley’s former satellites.

They were leaning forward or throwing themselves back in different attitudes of cruel enjoyment and derision, while Grantley stood at one side, his hawk-like face thrust out, his keen, pitiless eyes fixed malignantly on the figure in the center of the room.

Nick’s heart went out in pity toward that pathetic figure, although he could hardly believe his eyes.

It was that of Helga Lund, but so changed as to be almost unrecognizable.

Her splendid golden hair hung in a matted, disordered snarl about her face, which was pale and smudged with grime. She was clothed in the cheapest of calico wrappers, hideously colored, soiled and torn, beneath which showed her bare, dust-stained feet.

She had thrown herself upon her knees, as the part required; her outstretched hands were intertwined beseechingly, and her wonderful eyes were raised to Grantley’s face. In them was the hurt, fearful look of a faithful but abused dog in the presence of a cruel master.

Her tattered sleeves revealed numerous bruises on her perfectly formed arms.

The part of the play which Grantley had ordered her to render was that in which the heroine pleaded with her angry lover for his forgiveness of some past act of hers, which she had bitterly repented.

She was reciting the powerful lines now. They had always held her great audiences breathless, but how different was this pitiable travesty!

It would have been hard enough at best for her to make them ring true when delivered before such unsympathetic listeners and in such an incongruous garb, but she was not at her best. On the contrary, her performance was infinitely worse than anyone would have supposed possible.

She had unconsciously adopted every one of the hypnotist’s brutal suggestions.

There was not a vestige of her famous grace in any of her movements. The most ungainly slattern could not have been more awkward.

Her words were spoken parrot-like, as if learned by rote, without the slightest understanding of their meaning. For the most part, they succeeded one another without any attempt at emphasis, and when emphasis was used, it was invariably in the wrong place.

It was her voice itself, however, which gave Nick and Chick their greatest shock.

The Lund, as she was generally called in Europe, had always been celebrated for her remarkably musical voice; but this sorry-looking creature’s voice was alternately shrill and harsh. It pierced and rasped and set the teeth on edge, just as the sound of a file does.

Nothing could have given a more sickening sense of Grantley’s power over the actress than this astounding transformation, this slavish adherence to the conditions of abject failure which he had imposed upon her.

It seemed incredible, and yet, there it was, plainly revealed to sight and hearing alike.

A subtler or more uncanny revenge has probably never been conceived by the mind of man. The public breakdown which Grantley had so mercilessly caused had only been the beginning of his scheme of vengeance.

He doubtless meant to hypnotize his victim again and again, and each time to impose his will upon her gradually weakening mind, until she had become a mere wreck of her former self, and incapable of ever again taking her former place in the ranks of genius.

There was nothing impossible about it. On the contrary, the result was a foregone conclusion if Grantley were left free to continue as he had begun.

The very emotional susceptibility which had made Helga Lund a great actress had also made her an easy victim of hypnotic suggestion, and if the process went on long enough, she would permanently lose everything that had made her successful.

Outright murder would have been innocent by comparison with such infernal ingenuity of torture. It seemed to Nick as if he were watching the destruction of a splendid priceless work of art.

He had seen enough.

He withdrew the little periscope from the keyhole and straightened up. One hand went to his pocket and came out with an automatic. Chick followed his example.

They were outnumbered two to one, but that did not deter them.

Helga must be rescued at once, and her tormentors caught red-handed.

IX

What was to be done, though?

To burst into the room and seek to overpower the four doctors then and there, in Helga’s presence, would place the actress in additional danger.

Nick was convinced, however, that that risk would have to be run. He had seen evidences that more than one of the men were tiring of the cruel sport, and it might now come to an end at any moment.

He swiftly considered two or three possible plans for drawing the four away from their victim, but rejected them all. They would only increase the danger of a slip of some sort, and he was bent upon capturing the four, as well as releasing the actress.

Furthermore, he did not believe that even Grantley would dare to harm Helga further in his presence, even if the fortunes of war should give the surgeon a momentary opportunity.

He, accordingly, motioned to his assistant to follow close behind him, and laid his left hand on the knob.

He turned it noiselessly, and was greatly relieved to find that the door yielded. Their advent would be a complete surprise, therefore, and would find the four totally unprepared.

Nick paused a moment, then flung the door back violently and strode into the room.

Grantley was the ringleader, the most dangerous of the lot at any time, and the fact that he was an escaped convict would render his resistance more than ordinarily desperate. The periscope had told Nick where the fugitive stood, and thus the detective was enabled to cover him at once with the unwavering muzzle of the automatic.

‘Hands up, Grantley! Hands up, everybody!’ cried Nick, stepping a little to one side to allow Chick to enter.

His