“Well, I suppose you want me to say that the ladies gather about the mirror and the men about the buffet.”

“Exactly.  And some of the dancing partners separate and follow the crowd.  Well, that room presents a picture of what happens in an electrolytic solution at the moment when the electric current is passing through it.”

“Thanks,” I laughed.  “That was quite adequate to my immature understanding.”

Kennedy continued at work, checking up and arranging his data until the middle of the afternoon, when he went up to Stratfield.

Having nothing better to do, I wandered out about town in the hope of running across some one with whom to while away the hours until Kennedy returned.  I found out that, since yesterday, Broadway had woven an entirely new background for the mystery.  Now it was rumored that the lawyer Minturn himself had been on very intimate terms with Mrs. Pearcy.  I did not pay much attention to the rumor, for I knew that Broadway is constitutionally unable to believe that anybody is straight.

Kennedy had commissioned me to keep in touch with Josephson and I finally managed to get around to the Baths, to find them still closed.

As I was talking with him, a very muddy and dusty car pulled up at the door and a young man whose face was marred by the red congested blood vessels that are in some a mark of dissipation burst in on us.

“What—­closed up yet—­Joe?” he asked.  “Haven’t they taken Minturn’s body away?”

“Yes, it was sent up to Stratfield to-day,” replied the masseur, “but the coroner seems to want to worry me all he can.”

“Too bad.  I was up almost all last night, and to-day I have been out in my car—­tired to death.  Thought I might get some rest here.  Where are you sending the boys—­to the Longacre?”

“Yes.  They’ll take good care of you till I open up again.  Hope to see you back again, then, Mr. Pearcy,” he added, as the young man turned and hurried out to his car again.  “That was that young Pearcy, you know.  Nice boy—­but living the life too fast.  What’s Kennedy doing—­anything?”

I did not like the jaunty bravado of the masseur which now seemed to be returning, since nothing definite had taken shape.  I determined that he should not pump me, as he evidently was trying to do.  I had at least fulfilled Kennedy’s commission and felt that the sooner I left Josephson the better for both of us.

I was surprised at dinner to receive a wire from Craig saying that he was bringing down Dr. Gunther, Mrs. Pearcy and Isabel to New York and asking me to have Warner Pearcy and Josephson at the laboratory at nine o’clock.

By strategy I managed to persuade Pearcy to come, and as for Josephson, he could not very well escape, though I saw that as long as nothing more had happened, he was more interested in “fixing” the police so that he could resume business than anything else.

As we entered the laboratory that night, Kennedy, who had left his party at a downtown hotel to freshen up, met us each at the door.  Instead of conducting us in front of his laboratory table, which was the natural way, he led us singly around through the narrow space back of it.