The Dream Doctor

swering her description had been a visitor at the studio. Would she be used to get at the millionaire and his treasures? Was she herself part of the plot to victimise, perhaps kill, him? The wom

shape of hesitating in the course he had evidently mapped out to follow. He said little, but hurried off from

l after coil of copper wire about the storeroom in the basement of the museum. It was not a very difficult matter to conceal it, so

rimenting with during his tests of selenium on the afternoon when Mr. Spencer had first called on us

paratus, and paused only to remark that the boxes contained two sensitive selenium surfaces balanced against two carbon resistances. There was also in the box a clockwork mechanism which Craig wound up and set ticking ever so softly

den back of the Spencer house and up to a room on the top floor. In the upper room he attached the wires from the storeroom to what looked like a piece of cr

weighed fifteen or twenty pounds. That done, he produced a tape-measure and began, as if he were a surveyor, to measure various distances and apparently to calculate the angles and distances

y had we been able to dissuade him from moving heaven and earth to find Miss White, a proceeding which must certainly have disarranged Kennedy's carefully laid plans. So interested was he tha

for something to happen. Craig was apparently even more anxious than he had been the night before, when we watched in the

lish electrical expert. He was experimenting with high-frequency electric currents, investigating the nature of the discharges used for electrifying certain things. Quite by accident he found that when the room on which he was experimenting was occupied by some person his measuring-instruments indicated that fact. He tested the degree of variation by passing the current first through the room and then through a s

g and could hear a distinc

listening miles away," he went on. "A high-frequency current is constantly

e, Walter, take this receiver. You remember how the buzzing

uld tell the difference. In place of the load buzzing

ceiver back again. Ah, the buzzing is coming back. He is leaving the room. I suppose he has found the electric light cane and

he art-gallery and had the wireless receiver over his head. H

nslates light into sound by means of that wonderful little element, selenium, which in darkness is a poor conductor of electricity, but in light is a good conductor. This property is used in the optophone in transmitting an electric current

g to speak. Evidently the intruder was n

f a passing cart. I knew it was the moon both because I could see that it must be shining in and because I recognised the sound. The sun would thunder like a passing express-train if it were daytime now. I can distin

llery. He is flashing his electric light cane about at various objects, reconnoitring. No doubt if I wer

ited myself, "the buzzing from the high-fr

replied. "I'm not surprised. Keep a sharp watch.

en a long time since he had been a mere spectator, and h

"can't we make a dash over there and get him before he has a chance to do any more damage

nd all, including ourselves into the bargain, if he he

oreroom, Craig," I put in. "The buz

never mind about that electric detective any more, then. Take th

accustom my ears to the new sounds, but they were plain enough, and I shouted my impressions of their variations. Kennedy was busy at

y hurled into a magnified cave of the winds and a cataract mightier than Niagara was thundering at me

ghts in the art-gallery," Craig shouted. "The other person mu

ry window-sill of our room. Almost at the same in

ss of smoking ruins. Instead we saw nothing of the sort. On the window-ledge was a peculiar little instrumen

e cried breathlessly, bolting from the room, and seizing Dr. Lith by the arm as he did so

wo at a time, dragging the

seum and mounting the broad staircase to the art-gall

Apaches and the motor-car bandits. Open all the windows back here and let the air clear. Walter, breathe as little of it as you can-but-come here-do you see?-over there, nea

esh air I plunged in after him, scarcely knowing what would happen to me. I saw t

orced to inhale, I managed to drag the form

all about the millions of dollars' worth of curios, all about the suspicions that

member I was-I am your wife. Listen to me. Oh, it is the absinthe that has spoiled your art and made it worthless, not the critics. It is not Mr. Spencer who has enticed me away, but you who drove me away, first from Paris, and now from New York. He has been only-No! No!-" she was shrieking n

to French, laughing and crying alternatel

b. But I did. The minute was up, and Kennedy was in there

Craig himself. He was holding the infernal machine of the fiv

n never describe. It was just a second that I waited for the terrific

did n

shock, I dropped down b

he thing complete, so I emptied the acid into the sarcophagus. I guess I must have stayed in ther

You have been following this fiend of a husband of yours to protect the museum and myself from him. Lucille, Lucille-look at me.

arded Frenchman, crazy indeed from the curse of the green absinthe that had ruined him. He was scarcely breathing

as he carried his own burden dow

apers always distort it," he whispered aside to me a few minutes later. "James

ennedy gra

get every day. Just drop into the Star office and give them the straight story, I'll

managing editor late that night. I was too tired to write it at length, yet I coul

his six-cylindered existenc

urned some one else loose on that story,

iked it. It was just what I needed to encourage me, and I

copy of the Star into which a very accurate brief account of the affair had been dropped at t

I sauntered in on him, hard at work, "I don

very life. Stand it? Why, man, if you want me to pass away-stop it. As long as it last

talked, he laid aside the materials with which

ke Spencer and Brixton. For example, while I was wait

I echoed. "What

ered simply. "It's getting late and I promised to

large Fifth Avenue mansion and were listeni

thing has been altered since the discovery of the murdered c

teel," overwrought as he was by a murder in his own

most have been double his age, the more so in contrast with Minna Pitts, his young and very pretty w

g as a reason his failing health. But neither of us had thought, when the hasty summons came early tha

y, evidently not prepared for any

w reopened them slowly and I notic

You know, I am on a diet, have been ever since I offered the one hundred thousand d

he morning's mail still lay on the table, some letters open, as they had been when the discovery had be

he murderer might be?"

ancing keenly

e it up before they spoiled any of the clues. In the first place we do not think it could h

ave got in from the

servants' entrance, bu

e might have obta

g that she suspected something, perhaps was concealing something. Yet each of th

gth, "will you call some one and