The Dream Doctor

not so readily shake off my first suspicions of the wom

a drug fiend. From the very first life with him was insupportable. I stood it as long as I could, but when he beat me because he had no money to buy drugs, I left him. I gav

ent that it was with a stru

gave him money, my own money, for I made a great deal in my stage days. But his demands increased. To silence him I have paid him thousands. He squandered them faste

of the chef?"

us in alarm. "Before God, I know n

andal and disgrace of the charge of bigamy? Was there not something s

ystery. Kennedy, as usual, had nothing to say until he was absolutely sure of his ground. He spent the greater part of the next day h

n a neighbouring room was Thornton in charge of two nurses from the sanitarium. Thornton was a sad wreck of a man

e case," began Kennedy when we had all

a shudder passed over the slight form of Mrs. Pitts, as she must have realised that

of his blood. It was by means of these 'hemoglobin clues,' if I may call them so, that I was able to get on the right trail. For the fact is that a man's blood is not like tha

d forms crystals. That has long been known, but working on this fact Dr. Reichert and

further. By means of blood-crystals we can distinguish the blood of man from that of the animals and in addition that of w

polarising microscope. A blood-crystal is only one two-thousand-two-hundred-and-fiftieth of an inch in length and one nine-thousandth of an inch i

ere labelled, "Characteristic crystals of white man's blood"; others "Cr

a vast amount of difference, "three characteristic kinds of crystals, all of which I found in the vari

overy of two kinds, but three he

ate Sam, the negro chef," Kennedy went on. "A little more, found far from his body, is th

g. Before any of us could a

w years ago even a scientific detective would have concluded that a fierce hand-to-hand struggle had been waged and that the murderer was, perhaps, fatally wounded. Now, another conclusion stands, proved infallibly by this Reichert test. The murderer was wounded, but not badly. That person even went out of the room and returned later, proba

t was Minna Pitts. Yet it was difficult for me to believe that a woman of her ordinary gentleness could be here to-night, faced even by so great exposure, yet

ued: "Was it a woman who killed the chef? No, for the third specimen of

terrupted, as if casting about in his mind to recall some one who bore a recent wound. "Perhaps it was not a bad

It was a point that had

ely three days ago, there is no person even remotely suspected of the crime w

t recent discovery of accelerating the healing of wounds so that those which under or

self, it would perhaps become possible to hasten artificially the process of repair of the body. Aseptic wounds could probably be made to cicatrise more rapidly. If

them increased the growth of connective tissue, but the degree of acceleration varied greatly. In some cases

at he was now hastening to show us. He took a few cubic centimetres of some culture which he had be

od that I found was being or had been prep

he remarked, "is a one-to-one-tho

t tube so that it ran carefully down the side in a manner such as to form a sharp line

if you do it this way. The ordinary method in the la

ength and noting the pink colour that appeared at the junction of th

d the colour reaction is unsatisfactory. The natural yellow tint masks that pink tint, or sometimes causes it to disappear

repeate

thought that large doses of indol might be consumed with little or no effect on normal man, but now we know that headache, insomnia, confusion, irritability, decrea

actic-acid producing germs check the production of indol and phenol. In my tests here to-day, I injected four one-hundredths of a grain of indol into a guinea-pig. The animal had

at black magic was this?

germs could neutralise. What the chef was ordered to put into the food to benefit yo

utching for support at

now threw herself at

-tried so hard, so faithfully. Yet that old skeleton of my past which I thought was buried would not stay buried. I have bought Thornton off again and

er lips. She rose wildly and

Thornton?" dema

her as much as he could, Crai

s the danger that you might hear of it-and do as I see you have already done-forgive, and plan to right the unfortunate mistake. But with you dead, this Thornton, or ra

subtle microbic poison, st

cleverly?" rapped out Kennedy. "Who would have known the new process of healing wounds? Who knew about the fatal properties of

finished with irresis

ng as he could keep alive the unfortunate Thornton-the up-to-date doctor who substituted an eli

red and knew it. He made no fight. In fact, instantly his keen mind was busy outl

llows, "Minna-forgive? What is there to forgive? The only thing to do is to c

we are waiting, you can arrange to have Th

unate man. When at last I had Thornton placed where no one else

ill there, w

in what happens in a case after we have caught the criminal. But that often is really

or fatigue," I remarked, as we

ed. "A homeopathic r

lk to the apartment. But instead of going t

p to-night," he explained, s

planning that to-morrow I would take se

order to appear before Dr. Leslie in the coroner's inquest over the death of the chef. Dr

o out to luncheon, when

an in a police uniform, with a blue anc

ded "Harbour Police, Station No. 3, Staten Island," was an ur

e over to me and nodded to the man from the harbour squad to wait for us. "The Curtis family wish to retain a private detective to work in

starting downtown with the pol

ed having heard that at one time Bertha Curtis had been an actress, in spite of the m

nd another man, who was in a state of extreme ex

laimed the deputy as he grasped Kennedy's hand, "bu

is morning. They thought at first that the girl had committed suicide, making it doubly sure by jumping into the water, but he will not believe it and,-well, if

some other elements seem to be present which are not usually associated with violent deaths in the waters

d others, under much heavier penalties than before. The Health authorities not long ago reported to us that dope was being sold almost openly, without orders from physicians, at several scores of places a

ces that seem to be banded together in some way, from the lowest down in Chinatown to one very swell joint uptown around what the newspapers are calling 'Crime Square.' It is not that this place i

a headquarters for obtaining them,

, met and fascinated Miss Curtis during her brief career on the stage. He has an attendant there, a Jap, named Nichi Moto, who is a perfect enigma. I can't understand him on any reasonable theory. A long time ago we raided the place and packed up a lot of opium, pipes, material and other stuff. We found Clendenin there, this girl

ight lay covered up in the cold damp basement. Bertha Curtis had been a girl of striking beauty once. For a long time I gazed at the swollen features be

fe. Look at those nails, yellow and dark. It isn't a weak face, either. I wouldn't be surpris

eartrending tragedy had al