LITMIR.BIZ

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      It read simply, "I have succeeded in having Thornton declared . . ." Then there was a break. The last words were legible, and were, ". . . confined in a suitable institution where he can cause no future harm."

      There was no signature, as if the sender had perfectly understood that the receiver would understand.

      "Not difficult to supply some of the context, at any rate," mused Kennedy. "Whoever Thornton may be some one has succeeded in having him declared 'insane,' I should supply. If he is in an institution near New York, we must be able to locate him. Edward, this is a very important clue. There is nothing else."

      Kennedy employed the remainder of the night in obtaining a list of all the institutions, both public and private, within a considerable radius of the city where the insane might be detained.

      The next morning, after an hour or so spent in the laboratory apparently in confirming some control tests which Kennedy had laid out to make sure that he was not going wrong in the line of inquiry he was pursuing, we started off in a series of flying visits to the various sanitaria about the city in search of an inmate named Thornton.

      I will not attempt to describe the many curious sights and experiences we saw and had. I could readily believe that any one who spent even as little time as we did might almost think that the very world was going rapidly insane. There were literally thousands of names in the lists which we examined patiently, going through them all, since Kennedy was not at all sure that Thornton might not be a first name, and we had no time to waste on taking any chances.

      It was not until long after dusk that, weary with the search and dust-covered from our hasty scouring of the country in an automobile which Kennedy had hired after exhausting the city institutions, we came to a small private asylum up in Westchester. I had almost been willing to give it up for the day, to start afresh on the morrow, but Kennedy seemed to feel that the case was too urgent to lose even twelve hours over.

      It was a peculiar place, isolated, out-of-the-way, and guarded by a high brick wall that enclosed a pretty good sized garden.

      A ring at the bell brought a sharp-eyed maid to the door.

      "Have you—er—any one here named Thornton—er—?" Kennedy paused in such a way that if it were the last name he might come to a full stop, and if it were a first name he could go on.

      "There is a Mr. Thornton who came yesterday," she snapped ungraciously, "but you can not see him. It's against the rules."

      "Yes—yesterday," repeated Kennedy eagerly, ignoring her tartness. "Could I—" he slipped a crumpled treasury note into her hand—"could I speak to Mr. Thornton's nurse?"

      The note seemed to render the acidity of the girl slightly alkaline. She opened the door a little further, and we found ourselves in a plainly furnished reception room, alone.

      We might have been in the reception-room of a prosperous country gentleman, so quiet was it. There was none of the raving, as far as I could make out. that I should have expected even in a twentieth century Bedlam, no material for a Poe story of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feather.

      At length the hall door opened, and a man entered, not a prepossessing man, it is true, with his large and powerful hands and arms and slightly bowed, almost bulldog legs. Yet he was not of that aggressive kind which would make a show of physical strength without good and sufficient cause.

      "You have charge of Mr. Thornton?" inquired Kennedy.

      "Yes," was the curt response.

      "I trust he is all right here?"

      "He wouldn't be here if he was all right," was the quick reply. "And who might you be?"

      "I knew him in the old days," replied Craig evasively. "My friend here does not know him, but I was in this part of Westchester visiting and having heard he was here thought I would drop in, just for old time's sake. That is all."

      "How did you know he was here?" asked the man suspiciously.

      "I heard indirectly from a friend of mine, Mrs. Pitts."

      "Oh."

      The man seemed to accept the explanation at its face value.

      "Is he very—very badly?" asked Craig with well-feigned interest.

      "Well," replied the man, a little mollified by a good cigar which I produced, "don't you go a-telling her. but if he says the name Minna once a day it is a thousand times. Them drug-dopes has some strange delusions."

      "Strange delusions?" queried Craig. "Why, what do you mean?"

      "Say," ejaculated the man. "I don't know you, You come here saying you're friends of Mr. Thornton's. How do I know what you are?"

      "Well," Tentured Kennedy, "suppose I should also tell you I am a friend of the man who committed him."

      "Of Dr. Thompson Lord?"

      "Exactly. My friend here knows Dr. Lord very well, don't you, Walter?"

      Thus appealed to I hastened to add, "Indeed I do." Then, improving the opening, I hastened: "Is this Mr. Thornton violent? I think this is one of the most quiet institutions I ever saw for so small a place."

      The man shook his head.

      "Because," I added, "I thought some drug fiends were violent and had to be restrained by force, often."

      "You won't find a mark or a scratch on him, sir," replied the man. "That ain't our system."

      "Not a mark or scratch on him," repeated Kennedy thoughtfully. "I wonder if he'd recognise me?"

      "Can't say," concluded the man. "What's more, can't try. It's against the rules. Only your knowing so many he knows has got you this far. You'll have to call on a regular day or by appointment to see him, gentlemen."

      There was an air of finality about the last statement that made Kennedy rise and move toward the door with a hearty "Thank you, for your kindness," and a wish to be remembered to "poor old Thornton."

      As we climbed into the car he poked me in the ribs. "Just as good for the present as if we had seen him." he exclaimed. "Drug-fiend, friend of Mrs. Pitts, committed by Dr. Lord, no wounds."

      Then he lapsed into silence as we sped back to the city.

      "The Pitts house," ordered Kennedy as we bowled along, after noting by his watch that it was after nine. Then to me he added, "We must see Mrs. Pitts once more, and alone."

      We waited some time after Kennedy sent up word that he would like to see Mrs. Pitts. At last she appeared. I thought she avoided Kennedy's eye, and I am sure that her intuition told her that he had some revelation to make, against which she was steeling herself.

      Craig greeted her as reassuringly as he could, but as she sat nervously before us, I could see that she was in reality pale, worn, and anxious.

      "We have had a rather hard day," began Kennedy after the usual polite inquiries about her own and her husband's health had been, I thought, a little prolonged by him.

      "Indeed?" she asked. "Have you come any closer to the truth?"

      Kennedy met her eyes, and she turned away.

      "Yes, Mr. Jameson and I have put in the better part of the day in going from one institution for the insane to another."

      He paused. The startled look on her face told as plainly as words that his remark had struck home.

      Without giving her a chance to reply, or to think of a verbal means of escape, Craig hurried on with an account of what we had done, saying nothing about the original letter which had started us on the search for Thornton, but leaving it to be inferred by her that he knew much more than he cared to tell.

      "In short, Mrs. Pitts," he concluded firmly, "I do not need to tell you that I already know much about the matter which you are concealing."

      The piling up of fact on fact, mystifying as it was to me who had as yet no inkling of what it was tending toward, proved too much for the woman who

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