On we tore back to the city, across the bridge and down through the canyons of East Side streets.
At last we pulled up before the tenement at five hundred and one. As we did so, one of Burke’s men jumped out of the doorway.
“Are we in time?” shouted Burke.
“It’s an awful mix-up,” returned the man. “I can’t make anything out of it, so I ordered ’em all held here till you came.”
We pushed past without a word of criticism of his wonderful acumen.
On the top floor we came upon a young man, bending over the form of a girl who had fainted. On the floor of the middle of the room was a mass of charred papers which had evidently burned a hole in the carpet before they had been stamped out. Near by was an unlighted cigarette, crushed flat on the floor.
“How is she?” asked Kennedy anxiously of the young man, as he dropped down on the other side of the girl.
It was Paula. She had fainted, but was just now coming out of the borderland of unconsciousness.
“Was I in time? Had he smoked it?” she moaned weakly, as there swam before her eyes, evidently, a hazy vision of our faces.
Kennedy turned to the young man.