"Thanks," grinned the dip as he disappeared through the revolving door.
We had returned to the laboratory that night where Kennedy was preparing to experiment on the white powder which he had secured in the packet that came from Dr. Harris. The door opened and Clare Kendall entered.
"I've been calling you up all over town," she said, "and couldn't find you. I have something that will interest you, I think. You said you wanted something written by Dr. Harris. Well, there it is."
She laid a sheet of typewriting on the laboratory table.
"How did you get it?" asked Kennedy in eager approbation.
"When I left you at the Futurist Tea Room to follow that woman Marie in the cab, I had a good deal of trouble. I guess people thought I was crazy, the way I was ordering that driver about, but he was so stupid and he would get tangled up in the traffic on Fifth Avenue. Still, I managed to hang on, principally because I had a notion already that she was going to the Montmartre. Sure enough, she turned down that block, but she didn't go into the hotel after all. She stopped and went into a place two doors down—Mme. Margot's Beauty Parlour."
"Just where we finally saw Harris go," exclaimed Kennedy. "I beg your pardon for interrupting."
"Of course I couldn't go in right after her, so I drove around the corner. Then it occurred to me that it would be a good time to stop in to see Dr. Harris—when he was out. You know my experience with the fakers has made me pretty good at faking up ailments. Then, too, I knew that it would be easy when he was not there. I said I was an old patient and had an appointment and that I'd wait, although I knew those were not his regular office hours. He has an alleged trained nurse there all the time. She let me into his waiting-room on the second floor in front—you remember the private dining-rooms are in back. I waited in momentary fear that he WOULD come back. You see, I had a scheme of my own. Well, I waited until at last the nurse had to leave the office for a short time.
"That was my chance. I tiptoed over to his desk in the next room. On it were a lot of letters. I looked over them but could find nothing that seemed to be of interest. They were all letters from other people. But they showed that he must have quite an extensive practice, and that he is not over-scrupulous. I didn't want to take anything that would excite suspicion unless I had to. Just then I heard someone coming down the corridor from the elevator. I had just time to get back to a chair in the waiting-room when the door opened and there was that Titian from the office, you remember. She saw me without recognizing me, went in and laid some papers on his desk. As soon as she was gone, I went in again and looked them over. Here was one that she had copied for him."
Kennedy had been carefully scrutinizing the sheet of paper as she told how she obtained it.