I hate to ruin a really entertaining hypothesis, but that one is so good I just have to say: Damn, I wish I had thought of that.
Wow, high praise indeed.
It's an interesting theory, but I'm glad you didn't think of it or use a variation of it because under all the layers, after all the knots were untied, Adrian would be a particularly fiendish and ingenious version of Bertram.
It wouldn't necessarily have to work out that way. Adrian could, on discovering who he used to be, decide that he didn't want to be that person any more. That would turn it into a story of redemption. "What can change the nature of a man" was a great theme for Planescape: Torment and I suspect it would work equally well in hypnofetish porn.
Still, a moot point unless Daphne wants to steal the idea for some other comic.
Derek was active to the point that his role in the "plan" was completely useless. He set off the triggers, but instead of waiting for developments (as one could argue Adrian did) or asking questions of pliant subjects so as togather information that he could asemble into some sort of report or could use to locate the item and the person he was there to locate, he just decided to have fun.
I still believe that if Derek had simply asked Danielle about the watch she would have told him. Claudia told him to (1) Use the trigger, (2) ask about the watch, and then (3) he could bang them as a reward. I think the essence of Derek's mistake was to do this in the wrong order. He would (1) Use the trigger, (2) bang the woman, and only then (3) ask about the watch. For all the other girls this didn't cause any problems because they didn't know anything. With Danielle it was a big deal. He didn't get a chance to ask her the first time he used the trigger because Adrian swooped in and took her away. He had plenty of time at his house but he wanted to bang her first, and Adrian showed up and took her away a second time before he could ask. No wonder Claudia's pissed with him -- everything would have worked if Derek hadn't been thinking with his dick.
I was really impressed with the idea that Derek nearly was literally seconds away from figuring it out but for Adrian's intervention back around issue #20 - I hadn't read that (still confusing to me) sequence in that way, and I think it's a good way to look at it.
On reflection I think "seconds away" might have been overstating it. A
competent agent, who prioritized doing his job over having hot monkey sex with a hot blonde sex slave, would have been seconds away. Derek, not being such an agent, had different priorities. But that's why Claudia is ticked off at him: if he'd just followed orders he'd have made the connection -- if not in #21 then in #70.
I take your second point - but we don't know whether Dani would be able to answer that question directly.
In #73, Adrian asks a triggered Danielle "You know how to use the watch right, Dani?" and she says "Oui, Master! Whatever you wish of me!" That's pretty close to a direct answer. Not 100% dispositive since Danielle knew that Adrian knew at that point, but it's suggestive.
One point that occurred to me. Did Zenon get Amy to become one of his patients after he came back from New York? She had the same trigger as the others - which would suggest so. He made her available for Derek. But wouldn't he have known enough about her to know she couldn't be the Watch girl?
I take this as evidence in support of my hypothesis that Zenon doesn't know about the watch. He isn't putting triggers only in women who might have fled the New York harem with the watch -- he's putting triggers in
all the women. That makes perfect sense if he doesn't know about the watch.