So far Kennedy had said little besides asking a question or two. I knew the symptoms. Gaines need not have hesitated or urged him. It was just the thing that appealed to him.
"How did Mrs. Gaines become interested in the thing?" queried Craig, a moment later, outside, as we climbed into the car with the professor.
"Through an acquaintance who introduced her to Karatoff and the rest.
Carita Belleville, the dancer, you know?"
Kennedy glanced at me and I nodded that I had heard of her. It was only a few nights before that I had seen Carita at one of the midnight revues, doing a dance which was described as the "hypnotic whirl," a wild abandon of grace and motion. Carita Belleville had burst like a meteor on the sky of the "Great White Way," blazing a gorgeous trail among the fixed stars of that gay firmament. She had even been "taken up" by society, or at least a certain coterie of it, had become much sought after to do exhibition dancing at social affairs, and now was well known in the amusement notes of the newspapers and at the fashionable restaurants. She had hosts of admirers and I had no doubt that Mrs. Gaines might well have fallen under the spell of her popularity.
"What is Miss Belleville's interest in Karatoff?" pursued Craig, keenly.
Gaines shrugged his shoulders. "Notoriety, perhaps," he replied. "It is a peculiar group that Karatoff has gathered about him, they tell me."
There was something unsatisfactory about the answer and I imagined that
Gaines meant purposely to leave it so as not to prejudice the case.
Somehow, I felt that there must be something risque in the doings of
Karatoff and his "patients." At any rate, it was only natural with
anything that Carita Belleville was likely to be concerned with.
There was little time for further questions, for our destination was not far down the Drive from the university, and the car pulled up before one of the new handsome and ornate "studio apartments" up-town.
We followed Gaines into the building, and the hall-boy directed us to a suite on the first floor.
A moment later we were admitted by Karatoff himself to what had become known as his "hypnotic clinic," really a most artistically furnished studio.