Dr. Coleman had gone long since, Mr. Sutphen had absolutely no interest further than the recovery of Mrs. Sutphen just now, and Mrs. Sutphen was resting quietly and could not be seen.  Accordingly Kennedy and I hastened up to the laboratory to wait until O’Connor could “deliver the goods.”

It was not long before one of O’Connor’s men came in with Whitecap.

“While we’re waiting,” said Craig, “I wish you would just try this little cut-out puzzle.”

I don’t know what Whitecap thought, but I know I looked at Craig’s invitation to “play blocks” as a joke scarcely higher in order than the number repetition of Snowbird.  Whitecap did it, however, sullenly, and under compulsion, in, I should say about two minutes.

“I have Armstrong here myself,” called out the voice of our old friend O’Connor, as he burst into the room.

“Good!” exclaimed Kennedy.  “I shall be ready for him in just a second.  Have Whitecap held here in the anteroom while you bring Armstrong into the laboratory.  By the way, Walter, that was another of the Binet tests, putting a man at solving puzzles.  It involves reflective judgment, one of the factors in executive ability.  If Whitecap had been defective, it would have taken him five minutes to do that puzzle, if at all.  So you see he is not in the class with Miss Sawtelle.  The test shows him to be shrewd.  He doesn’t even touch his own dope.  Now for Armstrong.”

I knew enough of the underworld to set Whitecap down, however, as a “lobbygow”—­an agent for some one higher up, recruiting both the gangs and the ranks of street women.

Before us, as O’Connor led in Armstrong, was a little machine with a big black cylinder.  By means of wires and electrodes Kennedy attached it to Armstrong’s chest.

“Now, Armstrong,” he began in an even tone, “I want you to tell the truth—­the whole truth.  You have been getting heroin tablets from Whitecap.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the dope fiend defiantly.

“To-day you had to get them elsewhere.”

No answer.

“Never mind,” persisted Kennedy, still calm, “I know.  Why, Armstrong, you even robbed that girl of twenty-five tablets.”

“I did not,” shot out the answer.

“There were twenty-five short,” accused Kennedy.

The two faced each other.  Craig repeated his remark.

“Yes,” replied Armstrong, “I held out the tablets, but it was not for myself, I can get all I want.  I did it because I didn’t want her to get above seventy-five a day.  I have tried every way to break her of the habit that has got me—­and failed.  But seventy-five—­is the limit!”

“A pretty story!” exclaimed O’Connor.

Craig laid his hand on his arm to check him, as he examined a record registered on the cylinder of the machine.

“By the way, Armstrong, I want you to write me out a note that I can use to get a hundred heroin tablets.  You can write it all but the name of the place where I can get them.”