“What are you doing in this case?” asked Kennedy.

“What the insurance companies have to do to recover stolen automobiles,” Garwood replied.  “For, with all deference to your friend, Deputy O’Connor, it is the insurance companies rather than the police who get stolen cars back.”

He had pulled out a postal card from a pigeon hole in his desk, selecting it from several apparently similar.  We read: 

$250.00 Reward

We will pay $100.00 for car, $150.00 additional for information which will convict the thief.  When last seen, driven by a woman, name not known, who is described as dark-haired, well-dressed, slight, apparently thirty years old.  The car is a Dixon, 1912, seven-passenger, touring, No. 193,222, license No. 200,859, New York; dark red body, mohair top, brass lamps, has no wind shield; rear axle brake band device has extra nut on turnbuckle not painted.  Car last seen near Prince Henry Hotel, New York City, Friday, the 10th.

Communicate by telegraph or telephone, after notifying nearest police department, with Douglas Garwood, New York City.  “The secret of it is,” explained Garwood, as we finished reading, “that there are innumerable people who keep their eyes open and like to earn money easily.  Thus we have several hundreds of amateur and enthusiastic detectives watching all over the city and country for any car that looks suspicious.”

Kennedy thanked him for his courtesy, and we rose to go.  “I shall be glad to keep you informed of anything that turns up,” he promised.

CHAPTER XX

THE ARTIFICIAL KIDNEY

In the laboratory, Kennedy quietly set to work.  He began by tearing from the germ letter the piece of gelatine and first examining it with a pocket lens.  Then, with a sterile platinum wire, he picked out several minute sections of the black spot on the gelatine and placed them in agar, blood serum, and other media on which they would be likely to grow.

“I shall have to wait until to-morrow to examine them properly,” he remarked.  “There are colonies of something there, all right, but I must have them more fully developed.”

A hurried telephone call late in the day from Miss Sears told us that Mrs. Blake herself had begun to complain, and that Dr. Wilson had been summoned but had been unable to give an opinion on the nature of the malady.

Kennedy quickly decided on making a visit to the doctor, who lived not far downtown from the laboratory.

Dr. Rae Wilson proved to be a nervous little woman, inclined, I felt, to be dictatorial.  I thought that secretly she felt a little piqued at our having been taken into the Blakes’ confidence before herself, and Kennedy made every effort to smooth that aspect over tactfully.

“Have you any idea what it can be?” he asked finally.

She shook her head noncommittally.  “I have taken blood smears,” she answered, “but so far haven’t been able to discover anything.  I shall have to have her under observation for a day or two before I can answer that.  Still, as Mrs. Blake is so ill, I have ordered another trained nurse to relieve Miss Sears of the added work, a very efficient nurse, a Miss Rogers.”