With a start, James Stone grasped his hat and stepped forward. He could not imagine by what black art the master of the house knew his name, and he eyed his host apprehensively as he passed him and entered the room beyond. He was doubtless face to face with the famous Doctor Stephen Follansbee, but it was hard, indeed, to believe it. The man before him could not have been more than five feet high. His head was as bare as a billiard ball and curiously elongated in shape. The vulturelike face, the almost fringeless eyelids, and the long, thin, hawklike nose held him mute. Into the black, beady eyes there flickered a sudden mirth, and the thin lips twisted into what was the ghost of a smile. “It’s all right, Stone!” the extraordinary individual declared. “You have come to the right place. You may not think it, but I’m Doctor Follansbee.” Was it possible? The man looked like some sinister bird of prey, and yet he was at the head of a celebrated hospital and enjoyed the most enviable reputation as an authority whose fame was countrywide. In response to a gesture from Follansbee the visitor dropped into a chair close beside a small desk that stood by a window. The specialist crossed the room with quick, birdlike steps and took his seat behind the desk. In the momentary pause that followed, the two men eyed each other, but what their thoughts were remained their respective secrets. At least, Stone could not read the physician’s. “You expected to see some one very different, I suppose?” Follansbee remarked, with a mocking smile. “A big, well-groomed figurehead with an impressive manner and a carefully trimmed Vandyke beard? Confess, now.” Stone relaxed and laughed. It was a short, grating laugh, and the physician’s eyes dilated slightly as he heard it. It was hardly the laugh of a sane person, and as Follansbee leaned forward he noted that the pupils of Stone’s eyes were fixed and round, a sign which the initiated always searches for in mental cases. “That’s about it,” the visitor admitted, in his harsh voice. “The—the young man who spoke to me about you told me that you were the head of a big hospital, and I’ve just been there.” Follansbee nodded. “I understand,” he said. “I can assure you that your friend was quite correct, as you’ve doubtless found out for yourself, if you’ve been at St. Swithin’s. I’ve never been called handsome, but I haven’t found that a drawback, and I suspect that you didn’t come to see me for my looks. Did you have a pleasant voyage on the _Cortez_?” Stone looked at him in open-mouthed amazement. “What do you know about me?” he demanded. “You nearly floored me by calling me by my name, and now you——”