Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

On the contrary, she began to moan. She drew one of her fingers across her brow. He saw the weal on her brow, which had faded, begin to glow again. He watched it with melancholy eyes. Whatever might have been the manner of Orme Malone’s death, there could be no doubt that the man had wrought foully to deserve it.

The weal stood out from the surface of the skin. Tiny drops of blood showed on its raised surface, like small rubies set in a coronet. Dr. Hailey was conscious of a sense of horror. What fearful memories were they which were wounding the living flesh of this girl before his eyes?

“Dick. Oh, don’t hurt him, don’t—”

Sacha uttered a wild cry which rang terribly in the silence. She sprang from the couch, and stood with outstretched hands and staring eyes, as though she witnessed a catastrophe too awful to be borne.

The next moment she had fallen prostrate on the floor of the room.

Dr. Hailey sprang to her side and lifted her in his arms. He saw that the drops of blood had become small trickles across her brow.

He saw, too, that at last she had awakened from her trance.

Chapter XXXIII Face Cream

Dr. Hailey laid Sacha back on the couch, but she refused to lie down. She passed her hand over her brow, and then glanced at her fingers. She exclaimed in astonishment.

“I must have cut myself when I fell.”

She pressed her handkerchief to the weal. Ninon Darelli, who was watching her, rose and left the room, saying she would get a little water to bathe the wound.

“Did you ask her to give you another dose of her medicine,” the doctor queried, in his gentle tones, “or did she invite you to come here to get it?”

“I asked her.”

Sacha glanced at the crystal which, in the dim light, shone with an almost metallic hue.

“She left me here alone. I couldn’t resist trying the crystal again. Then I suppose I must have become drowsy.” She broke off suddenly, and again pressed her handkerchief to her brow. “Ninon said that I had something of the medium in me, so perhaps it was not a sleep but a trance into which I fell.”

“You hypnotized yourself.” Dr. Hailey’s tones were rather abrupt. “Anybody can do it who cares to gaze long enough and fixedly enough at a bright object.” He contracted his brows. “As a rule, when autohypnosis is induced, the sleep is filled with pictures and images corresponding to the thoughts which were uppermost in the waking mind before the hypnosis began.”

He watched Sacha narrowly as he spoke. He saw her eyelids flicker for a moment, as though drowsiness were about to return. Ninon Darelli came back to the room with a little crystal bowl and a packet of cotton wool. She bathed the weal gently with her long, sensitive fingers, the touch of which seemed as light as thistledown.

When the operation was complete, Dr. Hailey announced his intention of taking Sacha home. He bestowed her in a cab, and was about to give the driver her address in Green Street when she leaned out of the vehicle and laid her hand on his arm.

“Tell him, please, to drive, first of all, to Ninette’s in Bond Street — No. 50–50; I want to buy some face cream to put on my cut.”

He gave the order and joined the girl in the cab.

“The scar,” he said, “will have completely vanished before to-morrow morning.”

“Ah, but that is too late,” Sacha cried. “You see, I am going to Redden to-night to the Hunt Ball. I have sent all my servants on already to Beech Croft. It was only because Mlle. Darelli refused to accompany me there that I came to London.”

“My dear Mrs. Malone, you are not fit to travel to Leicestershire.”

The cab came to the curb. Sacha opened the door and jumped out. He saw her walk briskly into the shop. The amazing contrast between this self-confident girl and the distracted woman of a few minutes ago, filled him with wonder. Yet, as he reflected, both these states of mind were attributable, probably, to the drug which was now circulating in her blood. The dreams of the hashish eater are not more astonishing than his supreme self-confidence when awake.

A look of deep anxiety came into his face. Sacha Malone was laboring, obviously, under some fierce excitement which had utterly broken down her powers of nervous restraint. Without these injections, her nerves would not be able to sustain the burden of such excitement.

Not a doubt remained in his mind, after what he had just seen and heard, that Barrington Bryan, as instructed by Ninon Darelli, was levying on the girl the most hideous of all forms of blackmail. When they reached Green Street he paid off the cab and followed Sacha up the steps of the house.

“There is something,” he explained, “about which I should like to talk to you at once.”

Sacha opened the front door with her key, and stood aside to allow him to enter.

The house had a curious feeling of emptiness which characterizes all untenanted human habitations.

Chapter XXXIV Half World

Sacha led the way to the dining room.