“What of that?” Doctor Devoll demanded. “A coincidence. Nothing else. One may have been influenced by having read of the others. There is no accounting for the doings of a drug fiend.”
“There is some truth in that,” Nick admitted.
“Let it go at that, then,” said Doctor Devoll, with a wave of his slender hands. “I wanted only to learn your opinion, your grounds for suspicion. You now are welcome to mine. I will answer any question you care to ask.”
“Thank you,” said the detective, who now was taking a somewhat different course than he would have shaped if he had detected nothing denoting duplicity in the physician. “You think these girls were drug fiends, do you?”
“I don’t know positively,” Doctor Devoll said quickly. “I am not sure that the coma in which I found them was the cause of a drug. There is a possibility, of course, that the cause was a temporary atrophy of the cerebral nerves.”
“But you intimated to Sergeant Brady that they were drugged,” Nick reminded him.
“That was and still is what I suspect, but I am not sure of it,” Doctor Devoll retorted. “I had not time to look deeply into either case. My duty was to restore my patient, which I succeeded in doing, and each of them then insisted upon departing and going home.”
“Why didn’t you detain them?”
“I had no right to do so. One may leave here as soon as able. This is not a police station.”
“But why didn’t you question them about their habits, Doctor Devoll, and insist upon knowing their names?” the detective asked more pointedly.