"Surely we should take some steps to protect ourselves from his impostures," hastened Carton.
"I have no objections to your calling him up and telling him that we know what he is up to and can trace it to him—provided you don't tell him how we did it—yet."
Carton had seized the telephone and was hastily calling every place in which Kahn was likely to be. He was not at either of his offices, nor at Farrell's, but at each place successively Carton left a message which told the story and which he could hardly fail to receive soon.
As Carton finished, Kennedy seemed to be emerging from a brown study.
He rose slowly and put on his hat.
"Your story about Murtha's commitment interests me," he remarked, "particularly since you mentioned Dorgan's name in connection with it. I've been thinking about Murtha myself a good deal since I heard about his condition. I want to see him myself."
Carton hesitated a minute. "I can break an engagement I had to speak to-night," he said. "Yes, I'll go with you. It's more important to look to the foundations than to the building just now."
A few minutes later we were all on our way in a touring car to the private sanitarium up in Westchester, where it had been announced that Murtha had been taken.
I had apprehended that we would have a great deal of difficulty either in getting admitted at all or in seeing Murtha himself. We arrived at the sanitarium, a large building enclosed by a high brick wall, and evidently once a fine country estate, at just about dusk. To my surprise, as we stopped at the entrance, we had no difficulty in being admitted.
For a moment, as we waited in the richly furnished reception room, I listened to the sounds that issued from other parts of the building. Something was clearly afoot, for things were in a state of disorder. I had not an extensive acquaintance with asylums for the care and treatment of the insane, but the atmosphere of excitement which palpably pervaded the air was not what one would have expected. I began to think of Poe's Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, and wonder whether there might not have been a revolution in the place and the patients have taken charge of their keepers.
At last one of the attendants passed the door. No one had paid any attention to us since our admission and this man, too, was going to pass us without notice.