“I guess that’s right, Carter,” agreed Warden Kennedy, tugging at his big mustache. “Bolts and bars are no good to keep in a man like that, who can make anybody let him out just by looking at him and telling him to hand over the keys. I suppose I’d have done it, too, if I’d been in Bradley’s place.” “Exactly!” the detective responded, with a laugh. “You couldn’t have helped yourself. Don’t worry, though. I think we can keep him from trying any more tricks of that sort, when we turn him over to you again.” “Hanged if I see how, unless we give him a dose of solitary confinement, in a dark cell, and have the men blindfold themselves when they poke his food in through the grating.” “That won’t be necessary,” Nick assured the warden as he prepared to leave. “We can get around it easier than that.” Half an hour later Nick was on his way back to New York City. He was not as light-hearted or confident as he had allowed Warden Kennedy to suppose, however. The fact that Grantley had turned to that mysterious and terrifying agency, hypnotism, with all of its many evil possibilities, caused him profound disquiet. Already the fugitive had used his mastery of the uncanny force in two widely different ways. He had escaped from prison with startling ease by means of it, and then, not content with that, he had hypnotized a famous actress in the midst of one of her greatest triumphs--for Nick had known all along that Helga Lund had yielded to hypnotic influence. If the escaped convict kept on in the way he had begun, there was no means of foretelling the character or extent of his future crimes, in case he was not speedily brought to bay. CHAPTER V. THE TRAIL VANISHES. Grantley’s trail vanished into thin air--or seemed to--very quickly. Nick Carter and his assistants had comparatively little trouble in finding the hotel which the fugitive had patronized the night before, but their success amounted to little. Grantley had arrived there at almost one o’clock in the morning and signed an assumed name on the register. He brought a couple of heavy suit cases with him. He had not been in prison long enough to acquire the characteristic prison pallor to an unmistakable degree, and a wig had evidently concealed his closely cropped hair. He was assigned to an expensive room, but left his newly acquired key at the desk a few minutes later, and sallied forth on foot. The night clerk thought nothing of his departure at the time, owing to the fact that the Times Square hotel section is quite accustomed to the keeping of untimely hours. That was the last any of the hotel staff had seen of him, however. His baggage was still in his room, but, upon investigation, it was found to contain an array of useless and valueless odds and ends, obviously thrown in merely to give weight and bulk. In other words, the suit cases had been packed in anticipation of their abandonment.