Kennedy nodded for her to go on.

“I’ve even investigated myself a little, and now I want to employ some one to break the thing up.  My husband had heard of you and so here I am.  Can you help me?”

There was a note of appeal in her voice that was irresistible to a man who had the heart of Kennedy.

“Tell me just what you have discovered so far,” he asked simply.

“Well,” she replied slowly, “after my agent verified the contents of the letter, I watched until I saw this girl—­she’s a mere child, as I said—­going to a cabaret in the neighborhood.  What struck me was that I saw her go in looking like a wreck and come out a beautiful creature, with bright eyes, flushed cheeks, almost youthful again.  A most remarkable girl she is, too,” mused Mrs. Sutphen, “who always wears a white gown, white hat, white shoes and white stockings.  It must be a mania with her.”

Mrs. Sutphen seemed to have exhausted her small store of information, and as she rose to go Kennedy rose also.  “I shall be glad to look into the case, Mrs. Sutphen,” he promised.  “I’m sure there is something that can be done—­there must be.”

“Thank you, ever so much,” she murmured, as she paused at the door, something still on her mind.  “And perhaps, too,” she added, “you may run across my sister, Mrs. Garrett.”

“Indeed,” he assured her, “if there is anything I can possibly do that will assist you personally, I shall be only too happy to do it.”

“Thank you again, ever so much,” she repeated with just a little choke in her voice.

For several moments Kennedy sat contemplating the anonymous letter which she had left with him, studying both its contents and the handwriting.

“We must go over the ground up there again,” he remarked finally.  “Perhaps we can do better than Mrs. Sutphen and her drug investigator have done.”

Half an hour later we had arrived and were sauntering along the street in question, walking slowly up and down in the now fast-gathering dusk.  It was a typical cheap apartment block of variegated character, with people sitting idly on the narrow front steps and children spilling out into the roadway in imminent danger of their young lives from every passing automobile.

On the crowded sidewalk a creation in white hurtled past us.  One glance at the tense face in the flickering arc light was enough for Kennedy.  He pulled my arm and we turned and followed at a safe distance.

She looked like a girl who could not have been more than eighteen, if she was as old as that.  She was pretty, too, but already her face was beginning to look old and worn from the use of drugs.  It was unmistakable.

In spite of the fact that she was hurrying, it was not difficult to follow her in the crowd, as she picked her way in and out, and finally turned into Broadway where the white lights were welcoming the night.

Under the glare of a huge electric sign she stopped a moment, then entered one of the most notorious of the cabarets.