“Still,” I put in, taking Kennedy’s cue, “just a word to set me straight can’t do any harm. I won’t quote you directly.”
He seemed to realize that it might be better to talk carefully than to leave all to my imagination.
“Well,” he began, slowly, “I have considered all the usual causes assigned for such morbid sleep. It is not auto-suggestion or trance, I am positive. Nor is there any trace of epilepsy. I cannot see how it could be due to poisoning, can you?”
I admitted readily that I could not.
“No,” he resumed, “it is just a case of what we call narcolepsy— pathological somnolence—a sudden, uncontrollable inclination to sleep, occurring sometimes repeatedly or at varying intervals. I don’t think it hysterical, epileptic, or toxemic. The plain fact of the matter, gentlemen, is that neither myself nor any of my colleagues whom I have consulted have the faintest idea what it is—yet.”
The door of the office opened, for it was not the hour for consulting patients, and a tall, athletic young fellow, with a keen and restless face, though very boyish, entered.
“My son,” the doctor introduced, “soon to be the sixth Doctor Haynes in direct line in the family.”
We shook hands. It was evident that Cynthia had not by any means exaggerated when she said that he was frantic over what had happened to his fiancee.
Accordingly, there was no difficulty in reverting to the subject of our visit. Gradually I let Kennedy take the lead in the conversation so that our position might not seem to be false.
It was not long before Craig managed to inject a remark about the red spot over Virginia’s nose. It seemed to excite young Hampton.
“Naturally I look on it more as a doctor than a lover,” remarked his father, smiling indulgently at the young man, whom it was evident he regarded above everything else in the world. “I have not been able to account for it, either. Really the case is one of the most remarkable I have ever heard of.”
“You have heard of a Dr. Carl Chapelle?” inquired Craig, tentatively.
“A beauty doctor,” interrupted the young man, turning toward his father. “You’ve met him. He’s the fellow I think is really engaged to Cynthia.”
Hampton seemed much excited. There was unconcealed animosity in the manner of his remark, and I wondered why it was. Could there be some latent jealousy?
“I see,” calmed Doctor Haynes. “You mean to infer that this—er— this Doctor Chapelle—” He paused, waiting for Kennedy to take the initiative.
“I suppose you’ve noticed over Miss Blakeley’s nose a red sore?” hazarded Kennedy.
“Yes,” replied Doctor Haynes, “rather refractory, too. I—”
“Say,” interrupted Hampton, who by this time had reached a high pitch of excitement, “say, do you think it could be any of his confounded nostrums back of this thing?”
“Careful, Hampton,” cautioned the elder man.
“I’d like to see him,” pursued Craig to the younger. “You know him?”
“Know him? I should say I do. Good-looking, good practice, and all that, but—why, he must have hypnotized that girl! Cynthia thinks he’s wonderful.”
“I’d like to see him,” suggested Craig.
“Very well,” agreed Hampton, taking him at his word. “Much as I dislike the fellow, I have no objection to going down to his beauty-parlor with you.”
“Thank you,” returned Craig, as we excused ourselves and left the elder Doctor Haynes.
Several times on our journey down Hampton could not resist some reference to Chapelle for commercializing the profession, remarks which sounded strangely old on his lips.
Chapelle’s office, we found, was in a large building on Fifth Avenue in the new shopping district, where hundreds of thousands of women passed almost daily. He called the place a Dermatological Institute, but, as Hampton put it, he practised “decorative surgery.”
As we entered one door, we saw that patients left by another. Evidently, as Craig whispered, when sixty sought to look like sixteen the seekers did not like to come in contact with one another.
We waited some time in a little private room. At last Doctor Chapelle himself appeared, a rather handsome man with the manner that one instinctively feels appeals to the ladies.
He shook hands with young Haynes, and I could detect no hostility on Chapelle’s part, but rather a friendly interest in a younger member of the medical profession.
Again I was thrown forward as a buffer. I was their excuse for being there. However, a newspaper experience gives you one thing, if no other—assurance.
“I believe you have a patient, a Miss Virginia Blakeley?” I ventured.
“Miss Blakeley? Oh yes, and her sister, also.”
The mention of the names was enough. I was no longer needed as a buffer.
“Chapelle,” blurted out Hampton, “you must have done something to her when you treated her face. There’s a little red spot over her nose that hasn’t healed yet.”
Kennedy frowned at the impetuous interruption. Yet it was perhaps the best thing that could have happened.
“So,” returned Chapelle, drawing back and placing his head on one side as he nodded it with each word, “you think I’ve spoiled her looks? Aren’t the freckles gone?”
“Yes,” retorted Hampton, bitterly, “but on her face is this new disfigurement.”
“That?” shrugged Chapelle. “I know nothing of that—nor of the trance. I have only my specialty.”
Calm though he appeared outwardly, one could see that Chapelle was plainly worried. Under the circumstances, might not his professional reputation be at stake? What if a hint like this got abroad among his rich clientele?
I looked about his shop and wondered just how much of a faker he was. Once or twice I had heard of surgeons who had gone legitimately into this sort of thing. But the common story was that of the swindler—or worse. I had heard of scores of cases of good looks permanently ruined, seldom of any benefit. Had Chapelle ignorantly done something that would leave its scar forever? Or was he one of the few who were honest and careful?
Whatever the case, Kennedy had accomplished his purpose. He had seen Chapelle. If he were really guilty of anything the chances were all in favor of his betraying it by trying to cover it up. Deftly suppressing Hampton, we managed to beat a retreat without showing our hands any further.
“Humph!” snorted Hampton, as we rode down in the elevator and hopped on a ‘bus to go up-town. “Gave up legitimate medicine and took up this beauty doctoring—it’s unprofessional, I tell you. Why, he even advertises!”
We left Hampton and returned to the laboratory, though Craig had no present intention of staying there. His visit was merely for the purpose of gathering some apparatus, which included a Crookes tube, carefully packed, a rheostat, and some other paraphernalia which we divided. A few moments later we were on our way again to the Blakeley mansion.
No change had taken place in the condition of the patient, and Mrs. Blakeley met us anxiously. Nor was the anxiety wholly over her daughter’s condition, for there seemed to be an air of relief when Kennedy told her that we had little to report.
Up-stairs in the sick-room, Craig set silently to work, attaching his apparatus to an electric-light socket from which he had unscrewed the bulb. As he proceeded I saw that it was, as I had surmised, his new X-ray photographing machine which he had brought. Carefully, from several angles, he took photographs of Virginia’s head, then, without saying a word, packed up his kit and