“Because I wanted to detain her.”
“Detain her? For what?” The physician gazed more intently.
“For what!” Brady echoed him derisively. “It strikes me, Doctor Devoll, that this business has gone far enough. This is the fourth girl brought here in the same condition, under the same mysterious circumstances, and allowed to depart before a thorough investigation was made. Not hide nor hair of them could afterward be found. She should have been kept here until we could——”
“Pardon me, sergeant,” Doctor Devoll checked him with a gesture, “you overlook one fact.”
“One fact?”
“This is a hospital, not a police station. I am a physician, not a detective. My duty is to care for a patient, if necessary, but not to hold one in custody after one has recovered. I have no right to do that. The young lady insisted upon going home, and I had no proper course but to let her go.”
“All right, doctor, if you look at it in that way,” said Brady, still frowning darkly.
“There is no other way for me to look at it,” Doctor Devoll said suavely. “As a matter of fact, however, you can easily find and question the girl. I learned her name and address, which I neglected doing in the previous cases.”
“Ah, that’s better!” Brady declared. “Who is she?”
“Her name is Mabel Smith. She boards at No. 81 Flint Street.”