Kennedy and I lost no time in starting downtown with the policeman who had brought the note.

The Curtises, as we knew, were among the prominent families of Manhattan and I recalled having heard that at one time Bertha Curtis had been an actress, in spite of the means and social position of her family, from whom she had become estranged as a result.

At the station of the harbour police, O’Connor and another man, who was in a state of extreme excitement, greeted us almost before we had landed.

“There have been some queer doings about here,” exclaimed the deputy as he grasped Kennedy’s hand, “but first of all let me introduce Mr. Walker Curtis.”

In a lower tone as we walked up the dock O’Connor continued, “He is the brother of the girl whose body the men in the launch at the station found in the Kill this 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 you’ll just come over with us to the local undertaking establishment, I’d like to have you take a look at the body and see if your opinion coincides with mine.

“Ordinarily,” pursued O’Connor, “there isn’t much romance in harbour police work nowadays, but in this case some other elements seem to be present which are not usually associated with violent deaths in the waters of the bay, and I have, as you will see, thought it necessary to take personal charge of the investigation.

“Now, to shorten the story as much as possible, Kennedy, you know of course that the legislature at the last session enacted laws prohibiting the sale of such drugs as opium, morphine, cocaine, chloral and 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 and we have begun a crusade for the enforcement of the law.  Of course you know how prohibition works in many places and how the law is beaten.  The dope fiends seem to be doing the same thing with this law.

“Of course nowadays everybody talks about a ‘system’ controlling everything, so I suppose people would say that there is a ’dope trust.’  At any rate we have run up against at least a number of places 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 is pandering to criminals or the women of the Tenderloin that interests us so much as that its patrons are men and women of fashionable society whose jangled nerves seem to demand a strong narcotic.

“This particular place seems to be a headquarters for obtaining them, especially opium and its derivatives.