Slowly I wrote, “Have Mrs. Gaines pick out a record, play it on the phonograph, then let her do as she pleases.”

Some moments elapsed while the others wrote.  Apparently they were trying to devise methods of testing Doctor Karatoff’s mettle.  Then the papers were collected and deposited on the table beside him.

Apparently at random Karatoff picked out one of the folded papers, then, seemingly without looking at it and certainly without unfolding it, as far as I could determine, he held it up to his forehead.

It was an old trick, I knew.  Perhaps he had palmed a sponge wet with alcohol or some other liquid, had brushed it over the paper, making the writing visible through it, and drying out rapidly so as to leave the paper opaque again long before any of us saw it a second time.  Or was he really exercising some occult power?  At any rate, he read it, or pretended to read it, at least.

“I am asked to hypnotize Mrs. Gaines,” he announced, dropping the paper unconcernedly on the table beside the other pile, as though this were mere child’s play for his powers.  It was something of a shock to realize that it was my paper he had chanced to pick up first, and I leaned forward eagerly, watching.

Mrs. Gaines rose and every eye was riveted on her as Karatoff placed her in an easy-chair before him.  There was an expectant silence, as Karatoff moved the chair so that she could concentrate her attention only on a bright silver globe suspended from the ceiling.  The half-light, the heavy atmosphere, the quiet, assured manner of the chief actor in the scene, all combined to make hypnotization as nearly possible as circumstances could.  Karatoff moved before her, passing his hands with a peculiar motion before her eyes.  It seemed an incredibly short time in which Edith Gaines yielded to the strange force which fascinated the group.

“Quite susceptible,” murmured Kennedy, beside me, engrossed in the operation.

“It is my test,” I whispered back, and he nodded.

Slowly Edith Gaines rose from the chair, faced us with unseeing eyes, except as Karatoff directed.  Karatoff himself was a study.  It seemed as if he had focused every ounce of his faculties on the accomplishment of the task in hand.  Slowly still the woman moved, as if in a dream walk, over toward the phonograph, reached into the cabinet beneath it and drew forth a book of records.  Karatoff faced us, as if to assure us that at that point he had resigned his control and was now letting her act for her subconscious self.

Her fingers passed over page after page until finally she stopped, drew forth the record, placed it on the machine, wound it, then placed the record on the revolving disk.

My first surprise was quickly changed to gratification.  She had picked out the music to the “Hypnotic Whirl.”  I bent forward, more intent.  What would she do next?

As she turned I could see, even in the dim light, a heightened color in her cheeks, as though the excitement of the catchy music had infected her.  A moment later she was executing, and very creditably, too, an imitation of Carita herself in the Revue.  What did it mean?  Was it that consciously or unconsciously she was taking the slender dancer as her model?  The skill and knowledge that she put into the dance showed plainly.