Mr Holt raised his arms, as if he were exerting himself to make a forward movement,—­but he remained rooted to the spot on which he stood.

‘I can’t!’ he cried.

‘You can’t.’—­Why?’

‘It won’t let me.’

‘What won’t let you?’

‘The Beetle!’

Sydney moved till he was close in front of him.  He surveyed him with eager eyes.  I was just at his back.  I heard him murmur,—­ possibly to me.

‘By George!—­It’s just as I thought!—­The beggar’s hypnotised!’

Then he said aloud,

‘Can you see it now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘Behind you.’

As Mr Holt spoke, I again heard, quite close to me, that buzzing sound.  Sydney seemed to hear it too,—­it caused him to swing round so quickly that he all but whirled me off my feet.

’I beg your pardon, Marjorie, but this is of the nature of an unparalleled experience,—­didn’t you hear something then?’

’I did,—­distinctly; it was close to me,—­within an inch or two of my face.’

We stared about us, then back at each other,—­there was nothing else to be seen.  Sydney laughed, doubtfully.

’It’s uncommonly queer.  I don’t want to suggest that there are visions about, or I might suspect myself of softening of the brain.  But—­it’s queer.  There’s a trick about it somewhere, I am convinced; and no doubt it’s simple enough when you know how it’s done,—­but the difficulty is to find that out.—­Do you think our friend over there is acting?’

‘He looks to me as if he were ill.’

’He does look ill.  He also looks as if he were hypnotised.  If he is, it must be by suggestion,—­and that’s what makes me doubtful, because it will be the first plainly established case of hypnotism by suggestion I’ve encountered.—­Holt!’

‘Yes.’

‘That,’ said Sydney in my ear, ’is the voice and that is the manner of a hypnotised man, but, on the other hand, a person under influence generally responds only to the hypnotist,—­which is another feature about our peculiar friend which arouses my suspicions.’  Then, aloud, ’Don’t stand there like an idiot,—­come inside.’

Again Mr Holt made an apparently futile effort to do as he was bid.  It was painful to look at him,—­he was like a feeble, frightened, tottering child, who would come on, but cannot.

‘I can’t.’

’No nonsense, my man!  Do you think that this is a performance in a booth, and that I am to be taken in by all the humbug of the professional mesmerist?  Do as I tell you,—­come into the room.’

There was a repetition, on Mr Holt’s part, of his previous pitiful struggle; this time it was longer sustained than before,—­but the result was the same.

‘I can’t!’ he wailed.

’Then I say you can,—­and shall!  If I pick you up, and carry you, perhaps you will not find yourself so helpless as you wish me to suppose.’