now. I must see Maudsley. Quick!"
As we pulled up before the door of the reconstructed stable- studio, Kennedy jumped out. The door was unlocked. Up the broad flight of stairs, Hazleton went two at a time. We followed him closely.
Lying on the divan in the room that had been the scene of so many orgies, locked in each other's arms, were two figures--Veronica Haversham and Dr. Maudsley.
She must have gone there directly after our visit to Dr. Klemm's, must have been waiting for him when he returned with his story of the exposure to answer her fears of us as Mrs. Hazleton's detectives. In a frenzy of intoxication she must have flung her arms blindly about him in a last wild embrace.
Hazleton looked, aghast.
He leaned over and took her arm. Before he could frame the name, "Veronica!" he had recoiled.
The two were cold and rigid.
"An overdose of heroin this time," muttered Kennedy.
My head was in a whirl.
Hazleton stared blankly at the two figures abjectly lying before him, as the truth burned itself indelibly into his soul. He covered his face with his hands. And still he saw it all.
Craig said nothing. He was content to let what he had shown work in the man's mind.
"For the sake of--that baby--would she--would she forgive?" asked Hazleton, turning desperately toward Kennedy.
Deliberately Kennedy faced him, not as scientist and millionaire, but as man and man.
"From my psychanalysis," he said slowly, "I should say that it IS within your power, in time, to change those dreams."
Hazleton grasped Kennedy's hand before he knew it.
"Kennedy--home--quick. This is the first manful impulse I have had for two years. And, Jameson--you'll tone down that part of it in the newspapers that Junior--might read--when he grows up?"
THE END
The Social Gangster
VIII. The Anesthetic Vaporizer
XVII. The Inter-Urban Handicap
XX. The Mechanical Connoisseur
XXVII. The Perpetual Motion Machine
XXXIII. The Respiration Calorimeter
Chapter I
The Social Gangster
"I'm so worried over Gloria, Professor Kennedy, that I hardly know what I'm doing."
Mrs. Bradford Brackett was one of those stunning women of baffling age of whom there seem to be so many nowadays. One would scarcely have believed that she could be old enough to have a daughter who would worry her very much.
Her voice trembled and almost broke as she proceeded with her story, and, looking closer, I saw that, at least now, her face showed marks of anxiety that told on her more than would have been the case some years before.
At the mention of the name of Gloria