“Well, then, to begin at the beginning,” Ray resumed.  “A woman, giving her name as Mrs. William Vanderbeck, called at my father’s store on the day I came here, and asked to look at diamonds.  You will remember, I told you my father is a diamond dealer.  They were shown to her, and she selected several very expensive ornaments, which she said she wished to wear at a reception that evening.  But she represented that she could not purchase them unless they were first submitted to her husband for examination and his sanction.  He was an invalid; he could not come to the store, consequently the stones must be taken to him; was there not some reliable person who could be sent to her residence with them, when, if Mr. Vanderbeck was satisfied with the ornaments, a check for their price would be filled out and returned to my father.  This seemed fair and reasonable, and I was commissioned to attend the lady and take charge of the diamonds.  I put the package in my pocket, and my hand never left it until the coupe stopped before this house, when Mrs. Vanderbeck suddenly discovered that her dress had caught in the carriage door, and she could not rise.  Of course I offered assistance in disengaging it; but in spite of our united efforts, the garment was torn during the operation.  I suppose she robbed me at that moment, but am not quite sure, as I did not discover my loss until you—­whom I supposed to be the lady’s husband—­entered the room, and I slipped my hand into my pocket for the diamonds, only to find that they were gone.  You know the rest, and the treatment I received from yourself.  Is it any wonder that I believed you an accomplice when I found myself in that padded chamber and losing all sense and reason beneath the influence of a powerful mesmerist?”

Doctor Wesselhoff had listened gravely throughout the young man’s recital, and, though astonished and puzzled by what he heard, felt that he was relating a very connected story.

He was upon the point of replying to his questions, when he chanced to glance at his assistant, Doctor Huff, who had been in the room all the time, and saw that he was startlingly pale, and laboring under extreme agitation.

“Sir,” cried the man, hoarsely, “can it be possible that he is the victim of the recent diamond robbery, which has created so much excitement?  The newspapers have been full of the story that he has just related.”

CHAPTER XII.

AMOS PALMER FINDS HIS SON.

“What do you mean?” Doctor Wesselhoff sharply demanded, and losing color himself at the sudden suspicion that he also might have been the dupe of a set of rogues.

“Haven’t you seen an account of the affair in the papers?” Doctor Huff asked.  “They were full of it for two weeks after you left home.”

“No, I did not see a New York paper from the time I started until I returned.  I could not get one, even if I had not had too many cares and been too much absorbed in my wife’s critical condition to think of or read news of any kind,” Doctor Wesselhoff replied.  Then, with a sudden thought, as he turned again to Ray:  “Young man, is not your name Walton?”