She said it in a hesitating manner which I could not account for. Either she thought there might be something more back of it or she recalled her mother’s aversion to reporters and did not know whether she was saying too much or not.
“Do you really fear that there is something wrong?” I asked, significantly, hastily choosing the former explanation.
Cynthia Blakeley looked quickly at the door through which her mother had retreated.
“I—I don’t know,” she replied, tremulously. “I don’t know why I am talking to you. I’m so afraid, too, that the newspapers may say something that isn’t true.”
“You would like to get at the truth, if I promise to hold the story back?” I persisted, catching her eye.
“Yes,” she answered, in a low tone, “but—” then stopped.
“I will ask my friend, Professor Kennedy, at the university, to come here,” I urged.
“You know him?” she asked, eagerly. “He will come?”
“Without a doubt,” I reassured, waiting for her to say no more, but picking up the telephone receiver on a stand in the hall.
Fortunately I found Craig at his laboratory and a few hasty words were all that was necessary to catch his interest.
“I must tell mother,” Cynthia cried, excitedly, as I hung up the receiver. “Surely she cannot object to that. Will you wait here?”
As I waited for Craig, I tried to puzzle the case out for myself. Though I knew nothing about it as yet, I felt sure that I had not made a mistake and that there was some mystery here.
Suddenly I became aware that the two women were talking in the next room, though too low for me to catch what they were saying. It was evident, however, that Cynthia was having some difficulty in persuading her mother that everything was all right.
“Well, Cynthia,” I heard her mother say, finally, as she left the room for one farther back, “I hope it will be all right—that is all I can say.”
What was it that Mrs. Blakeley so feared? Was it merely the unpleasant notoriety? One could not help the feeling that there was something more that she suspected, perhaps knew, but would not tell. Yet, apparently, it was aside from her desire to have her daughter restored to normal. She was at sea, herself, I felt.
“Poor dear mother!” murmured Cynthia, rejoining me in a few moments. “She hardly knows just what it is she does want-except that we want Virginia well again.”
We had not long to wait for Craig. What I had told him over the telephone had been quite enough to arouse his curiosity.
Both Mrs. Blakeley and Cynthia met him, at first a little fearfully, but quickly reassured by his manner, as well as my promise to see that nothing appeared in the Star which would be distasteful.
“Oh, if some one could only bring back our little girl!” cried Mrs. Blakeley, with suppressed emotion, leading the way with her daughter upstairs.
It was only for a moment that I could see Craig alone to explain the impressions I had received, but it was enough.
“I’m glad you called me,” he whispered. “There is something queer.”
We followed them up to the dainty bedroom in flowered enamel where Virginia Blakeley lay, and it was then for the first time that we saw her. Kennedy drew a chair up beside the little white bed and went to work almost as though he had been a physician himself.
Partly from what I observed myself and partly from what he told me afterward, I shall try to describe the peculiar condition in which she was.
She lay there lethargic, scarcely breathing. Once she had been a tall, slender, fair girl, with a sort of wild grace. Now she seemed to be completely altered. I could not help thinking of the contrast between her looks now and the photograph in my pocket.
Not only was her respiration slow, but her pulse was almost imperceptible, less than forty a minute. Her temperature was far below normal, and her blood pressure low. Once she had seemed fully a woman, with all the strength and promise of precocious maturity. But now there was something strange about her looks. It is difficult to describe. It was not that she was no longer a young woman, but there seemed to be something almost sexless about her. It was as though her secondary sex characteristics were no longer feminine, but—for want of a better word—neuter.
Yet, strange to say, in spite of the lethargy which necessitated at least some artificial feeding, she was not falling away. She seemed, if anything, plump. To all appearances there was really a retardation of metabolism connected with the trance-like sleep. She was actually gaining in weight!
As he noted one of these things after another, Kennedy looked at her long and carefully. I followed the direction of his eyes. Over her nose, just a trifle above the line of her eyebrows, was a peculiar red mark, a sore, which was very disfiguring, as though it were hard to heal.
“What is that?” he asked Mrs. Blakeley, finally.
“I don’t know,” she replied, slowly. “We’ve all noticed it. It came just after the sleep began.”
“You have no idea what could have caused it?”
“Both Virginia and Cynthia have been going to a face specialist,” she admitted, “to have their skins treated for freckles. After the treatment they wore masks which were supposed to have some effect on the skin. I don’t know. Could it be that?”
Kennedy looked sharply at Cynthia’s face. There was no red mark over her nose. But there were certainly no freckles on either of the girls’ faces now, either.
“Oh, mother,” remonstrated Cynthia, “it couldn’t be anything Doctor Chapelle did.”
“Doctor Chapelle?” repeated Kennedy.
“Yes, Dr. Carl Chapelle,” replied Mrs. Blakeley. “Perhaps you have heard of him. He is quite well known, has a beauty-parlor on Fifth Avenue. He—”
“It’s ridiculous,” cut in Cynthia, sharply. “Why, my face was worse than Virgie’s. Car—He said it would take longer.”
I had been watching Cynthia, but it needed only to have heard her to see that Doctor Chapelle was something more than a beauty specialist to her.
Kennedy glanced thoughtfully from the clear skin of Cynthia to the red mark on Virginia. Though he said nothing, I could see that his mind was on it. I had heard of the beauty doctors who promise to give one a skin as soft and clear as a baby’s—and often, by their inexpert use of lotions and chemicals, succeed in ruining the skin and disfiguring the patient for life. Could this be a case of that sort? Yet how explain the apparent success with Cynthia?
The elder sister, however, was plainly vexed at the mention of the beauty doctor’s name at all, and she showed it. Kennedy made a mental note of the matter, but refrained from saying any more about it.
“I suppose there is no objection to my seeing Doctor Haynes?” asked Kennedy, rising and changing the subject.
“None whatever,” returned Mrs. Blakeley. “If there’s anything you or he can do to bring Virginia out of this—anything safe—I want it done,” she emphasized.
Cynthia was silent as we left. Evidently she had not expected Doctor Chapelle’s name to be brought into the case.
We were lucky in finding Doctor Haynes at home, although it was not the regular time for his office hours. Kennedy introduced himself as a friend of the Blakeleys who had been asked to see that I made no blunders in writing the story for the Star. Doctor Haynes did not question the explanation.
He was a man well on toward the sixties, with that magnetic quality that inspires the confidence so necessary for a doctor. Far from wealthy, he had attained a high place in the profession.
As Kennedy finished his version of our mission,