LITMIR.BIZ

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bent over and tried to lift her up. As he did so, the gold bracelet, unclasped, clattered to the floor.

      He picked it up and for a moment looked at it. It was hollow, but in that part of it where it unclasped could be seen a minute hypodermic needle and traces of a liquid.

      "A poison bracelet," he muttered to himself, "one in which enough of a virulent poison could be hidden so that in an emergency death could cheat the law."

      "But this Dr. Hopf," exclaimed Reginald, who stood behind us looking from the insensible girl to the bracelet and slowly comprehending what it all meant, "she alone knows where and who he is!"

      We looked at Kennedy. What was to be done? Was the criminal higher up to escape because one of his tools had been cornered and had taken the easiest way to get out?

      Kennedy had taken down the receiver of the wall telephone in the room. A moment later he was calling insistently for his laboratory. One of the students in another part of the building answered. Quickly he described the apparatus for vividiffusion and how to handle it without rupturing any of the delicate tubes.

      "The large one," he ordered, "with one hundred and ninety-two tubes. And hurry."

      Before the student appeared, came an ambulance which some one in the excitement had summoned. Kennedy quickly commandeered both the young doctor and what surgical material he had with him.

      Briefly he explained what he proposed to do and before the student arrived with the apparatus, they had placed the nurse in such a position that they were ready for the operation.

      The next room which was unoccupied had been thrown open to us and there I waited with Reginald and Duncan, endeavoring to explain to them the mysteries of the new process of washing the blood.

      The minutes lengthened into hours, as the blood of the poisoned girl coursed through its artificial channel, literally being washed of the toxin from the poisoned bracelet.

      Would it succeed? It had saved the life of Buster. But would it bring back the unfortunate before us, long enough even for her to yield her secret and enable us to catch the real criminal. What if she died?

      As Kennedy worked, the young men with me became more and more fascinated, watching him. The vividiffusion apparatus was now in full operation.

      In the intervals when he left the apparatus in charge of the young ambulance surgeon Kennedy was looking over the room. In a trunk which was open he found several bundles of papers. As he ran his eye over them quickly, he selected some and stuffed them into his pocket, then went back to watch the working of the apparatus.

      Reginald, who had been growing more and more nervous, at last asked if he might call up Betty to find out how his mother was.

      He came back from the telephone, his face wrinkled.

      "Poor mother," he remarked anxiously, "do you think she will pull through, Professor? Betty says that Dr. Wilson has given her no idea yet about the nature of the trouble."

      Kennedy thought a moment. "Of course," he said, "your mother has had no such relative amount of the poison as Buster has had. I think that undoubtedly she will recover by purely natural means. I hope so. But if not, here is the apparatus," and he patted the vividiffusion tubes in their glass case, "that will save her, too."

      As well as I could I explained to Reginald the nature of the toxin that Kennedy had discovered. Duncan listened, putting in a question now and then. But it was evident that his thoughts were on something else, and now and then Reginald, breaking into his old humor, rallied him about thinking of Betty.

      A low exclamation from both Kennedy and the surgeon attracted us.

      Dora Sears had moved.

      The operation of the apparatus was stopped, the artery and vein had been joined up, and she was slowly coming out from under the effects of the anesthetic.

      As we gathered about her, at a little distance, we heard her cry in her delirium, "I--I would have--done--anything--for him."

      We strained our ears. Was she talking of the blackmailer, Dr. Hopf?

      "Who?" asked Craig, bending over close to her ear.

      "I--I would--have done anything," she repeated as if someone had contradicted her. She went on, dreamily, ramblingly, "He--is--is-- my brother. I--"

      She stopped through weakness.

      "Where is Dr. Hopf?" asked Kennedy, trying to recall her fleeting attention.

      "Dr. Hopf? Dr. Hopf?" she repeated, then smiling to herself as people will when they are leaving the borderline of anesthesia, she repeated the name, "Hopf?"

      "Yes," persisted Kennedy.

      "There is no Dr. Hopf," she added. "Tell me--did--did they--"

      "No Dr. Hopf?" Kennedy insisted.

      She had lapsed again into half insensibility.

      He rose and faced us, speaking rapidly.

      "New York seems to have a mysterious and uncanny attraction for odds and ends of humanity, among them the great army of adventuresses. In fact there often seems to be something decidedly adventurous about the nursing profession. This is a girl of unusual education in medicine. Evidently she has traveled--her letters show it. Many of them show that she has been in Italy. Perhaps it was there that she heard of the drug that has been used in this case. It was she who injected the germ-free toxin, first into the dog, then into Mrs. Blake, she who wrote the blackmail letter which was to have explained the death."

      He paused. Evidently she had heard dimly, was straining every effort to hear. In her effort she caught sight of our faces.

      Suddenly, as if she had seen an apparition, she raised herself with almost superhuman strength.

      "Duncan!" she cried. "Duncan! Why--didn't you--get away--while there was time--after you warned me?"

      Kennedy had wheeled about and was facing us. He was holding in his hand some of the letters he had taken from the trunk. Among others was a folded piece of parchment that looked like a diploma. He unfolded it and we bent over to read.

      It was a diploma from the Central Western College of Nursing. As I read the name written in, it was with a shock. It was not Dora Sears, but Dora Baldwin.

      "A very clever plot," he ground out, taking a step nearer us. "With the aid of your sister and a disreputable gang of chauffeurs you planned to hasten the death of Mrs. Blake, to hasten the inheritance of the Blake fortune by your future wife. I think your creditors will have less chance of collecting now than ever, Duncan Baldwin."

      Chapter XXII

      The Devil Worshipers

       Table of Contents

      Tragic though the end of the young nurse, Dora Baldwin, had been, the scheme of her brother, in which she had become fatally involved, was by no means as diabolical as that in the case that confronted us a short time after that.

      I recall this case particularly not only because it was so weird but also because of the unique manner in which it began.

      "I am damned--Professor Kennedy--damned!"

      The words rang out as the cry of a lost soul. A terrible look of inexpressible anguish and fear was written on the face of Craig's visitor, as she uttered them and sank back, trembling, in the easy chair, mentally and physically convulsed.

      As nearly as I had been able to follow, Mrs. Veda Blair's story had dealt mostly with a Professor and Madame Rapport and something she called the "Red Lodge" of the "Temple of the Occult."

      She was not exactly a young woman, although she was a very attractive one. She was of an age that is, perhaps, even more interesting than youth.

      Veda Blair, I knew, had been, before her recent marriage to Seward Blair, a Treacy, of an old, though

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