“I suppose people think I never rest,” remarked Kennedy, carefully avoiding any reference to the exciting events of the past two days.  “But I do.  Like every one else, I have to.  When I am working hard on a case—­well, I have my own violent reaction against it—­ more work of a different kind.  Others choose white lights, red wines and blue feelings afterwards.  But I find, when I reach that state, that the best anti-toxin is something that will chase the last case from your brain by getting you in trim for the next unexpected event.”

He had sunk into an easy chair where he was running over in his mind his own plans for the morrow.

“Just now I must recuperate by doing no work at all,” he went on slowly undressing.  “That walk was just what I needed.  When the fever of dissipation comes on again, I’ll call on you.  You won’t miss anything, Walter.”

Like the famous Finnegan, however, he was on again and gone again in the morning.  This time I had no misgivings, although I should have liked to accompany him, for on the library table he had scrawled a little note, “Studying East Side to-day.  Will keep in touch with you.  Craig.”  My daily task of transcribing my notes was completed and I thought I would run down to the Star to let the editor know how I was getting along on my assignment.

I had scarcely entered the door when the office boy thrust a message into my hand.  It stopped me even before I had a chance to get as far as my own desk.  It was from Kennedy at the laboratory and bore a time stamp that showed that it must have been received only a few minutes before I came in.

“Meet me at the Grand Central,” it read, “immediately.”

Without going further into the office, I turned and dropped down in the elevator to the subway.  As quickly as an express could take me, I hurried up to the new station.

“Where away?” I asked breathlessly, as Craig met me at the entrance through which he had reasoned I would come.  “The coast or Down East?”

“Woodrock,” he replied quickly, taking my arm and dragging me down a ramp to the train that was just leaving for that fashionable suburb.

“Well,” I queried eagerly, as the train started.  “Why all this secrecy?”

“I had a caller this afternoon,” he began, running his eye over the other passengers to see if we were observed.  “She is going back on this train.  I am not to recognise her at the station, but you and I are to walk to the end of the platform and enter a limousine bearing that number.”

He produced a card on the back of which was written a number in six figures.  Mechanically I glanced at the name as he handed the card to me.  Craig was watching intently the expression on my face as I read, “Miss Yvonne Brixton.”

“Since when were you admitted into society?” I gasped, still staring at the name of the daughter of the millionaire banker, John Brixton.

“She came to tell me that her father is in a virtual state of siege, as it were, up there in his own house,” explained Kennedy in an undertone, “so much so that, apparently, she is the only person he felt he dared trust with a message to summon me.  Practically everything he says or does is spied on; he can’t even telephone without what he says being known.”