“After I found out he’d once been a metaphysical therapist in Los Angeles.”
“Sounds like he was a quack.”
“But definitely, Judy. They finally ran him out of town. He’s also rigged stock deals, sold salted mines, and headed up drives to raise funds for non-existent charities. ”
“You seem to know him quite well, Davie,” she said, a note of warning in her voice.
“Yeah, we got to be pretty close friends after he found out my girl friend worked in the bank.”
“I guess you’ll have to get the rest of it out of your system before you start the car, Davie. And it’s too far for me to walk home.”
“This Eggleston,” I said, “when he was in the business of treating nervous and emotionally troubled people, he used a lot of hypnotism. He’s really great with it Judy. You should see some of the stunts he pulls in the Wee Barrel. One night he gave Shorty Connors the post-hypnotic suggestion to stand on his head. And darned if Shorty didn’t try to upend himself five minutes after he came out of the trance, just like Eggleston had told him.”
“I begin to see the light,” Judy said thinly.
“Sure, hon. That silly lie detector machine won’t mean a thing. You’ll face it under the influence of post hypnotic suggestion. The cops will hunt a non-existent robber and never suspect that…”
“I,” she said, “am not the slightest bit interested.”
* * * *
She called me at seven-thirty the next morning, a half-hour earlier than usual.
At five-thirty that afternoon, we entered Mr. Eggleston’s hotel room together.
Mr. Eggleston made a small bow when I introduced him. “David, she is every bit as lovely as you stated. It is indeed a pleasure to know you, my dear Judy. May I call room service and get you anything? Perhaps an aperitif?”
“No, thanks.”
“No need to be nervous, my dear. The process is painless. You will in fact, feel more relaxed than you have in quite a while. ”
“Let’s just get it over with,” Judy said, worrying her small handbag in her hands.
“Quite.”
Mr. Eggleston crossed the room, partially closed the blinds, and motioned toward a big easy chair.
Judy sat down like she was forcing her knees to bend. Mr. Eggleston stood smiling and quiet before her.
“To be wholly successful, my dear, I must have your total cooperation. Put yourself in my hands completely.”
Judy gulped slightly. I thought she was going to back out. But she must have thought of all the money that would be in her teller’s cage tomorrow.
Mr. Eggleston’s manner was gentle and comforting. He drew a light occasional chair close to her and sat down. From his pocket, he took a shiny piece of metal about the size of a quarter.
“Focus your eyes on the coin. Judy, and blank your mind… Relax completely… Offer no resistance… It is so pleasant to relax…”
He continued to talk soothingly. Judy’s lids began to droop.
“You are sleepy, my dear… So gently and delightfully sleepy… Sleep… You are going to sleep… How pleasant to sleep… You are asleep, Judy…deeply asleep…very deeply, Judy.”
Mr. Eggleston began to draw away from her slowly. “You are in a deep, deep trance, Judy. You will remain in this trance until I count to three and snap my fingers.”
My throat was starting to get a little dry. I evenly shifted from one foot to the other.
Mr. Eggleston glanced at me. “She’s a most interesting subject, David. A very wonderful subject. Proof of her intelligence. The moron cannot be hypnotized, you know.”
He returned his attention to Judy. “When at last I count to three and snap my fingers, Judy, you will awaken from the trance immediately. Your conscious mind will remember nothing. To your conscious mind it will seem as if you have merely drifted off for a few seconds. But your subconscious will retain everything that is done during the trance to prepare you psychologically and physiologically for what is ahead. Is all this clear?”
“Yes, it is.” Judy’s voice was so everydayish and normal that I wondered for a second if she was faking the trance. But I knew better. There’d be no point in it. And I remembered how natural Shorty Connors had sounded while Mr. Eggleston had him under.
“Now, Judy,” Mr. Eggleston said, “there are a few things we must understand and make clear at the outset. There is nothing magical or supernatural in what we are doing. I can merely assist you. I cannot force you to do anything which you are absolutely determined not to do. For example, I could not force you to remove your clothing in the public square unless you had, in the secret depths of your personality, an exhibitionist urge to do such a thing. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“If you could stretch a moral point and obtain a great deal of money without injuring anyone, would you do so?”
“Why not?”
“Would you tell a straight-out lie for ten dollars?”
“No.”
“A hundred dollars?”
Judy didn’t hesitate. “No.”
“A thousand dollars?”
Judy hesitated.
“Fifty thousand dollars?” Mr. Eggleston persisted.
Judy rushed the answer: “Any day in the week! Just any old day!” Mr. Eggleston glanced at me with a satisfied smile, which I returned rather weakly while wiping beads of perspiration from my face.
Then Mr. Eggleston returned to his subject: “Judy, since you are a bright and intelligent girl, I’m sure you know the basic principle of the lie detector. When a person tells a lie, he or she experiences a slight rise in pulse rate, heart beat, blood pressure. The graph registers these changes and the operator of the machine determines if a person has told the truth.”
“I understand,” Judy said.
“Good. The reason for these physiological changes lie in the psyche, the subconscious. Mind over matter, so to speak. ”
“I understand,” Judy repeated.
“But that is a two-way street, my dear. Isn’t it? If the subconscious can control the pulse rate, the subconscious can also ignore it. Tomorrow you will tell a lie in
