I glanced over at Kennedy. Vina Lathrop! I knew also of Vina Lathrop, the beautiful wife of the society physician. It was certainly news that a divorce proceeding had even been contemplated. I could imagine how the newspapers would revel in it when they knew.
"Then you'll go?" queried Doctor Leslie, anxiously.
Kennedy completely ignored my earlier objection. "Certainly I'll go," he replied, pulling off his stained smock.
Ten minutes later, with Doctor Leslie, we came to the Wilford apartment, one of those ornate and expensive multiple dwellings that front the river and command a rental that fixes a social station in certain sets.
Following him, we rode up in the elevator, and had scarcely been admitted to the Wilford suite when we were greeted familiarly by a voice.
It was Doyle, of the detective bureau, a sleuth of the old school, but for all that a capital fellow and one with whom we got along very nicely, so long as we flattered him and allowed him a generous share of credit when the rounding out of a case came about.
"What do you really know about her?" he whispered, finally, after a few moments' chat, jerking his thumb ominously as he pointed with it down the hall in the direction of a room where I supposed that Honora Wilford must be.
"Very little, it's true," cut in Leslie. "I think our report said that her maiden name was Honora Chappelle, that her father, Honore Chappelle, made quite a fortune as an optician, that she was an only child and inherited—"
"I don't mean her pedigree," scorned Doyle. "I mean modern history. Now, I've been making some inquiries, from the neighbors and others, and I've had a couple of men out picking up stray bits of information."
Doyle leaned over patronizingly to Kennedy, as much as to say that, with all Craig's science, he couldn't beat the organization of the regular force, a contention Kennedy was always quite willing to admit.