Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/124

 mystery, and confided to us that it was an open secret that she was not an American at all, but a French girl whose name, she believed, was really Lucille Leblanc—which, after all, was White. Kennedy made no comment, but I wavered between the conclusions that she had been the victim of foul play and that she might be the criminal herself, or at least a member of a band of criminals.

No trace of her could be found through the usual agencies for locating missing persons. It was the middle of the afternoon, however, when word came to us that one of the city detectives had apparently located the studio of Delaverde. It was coupled with the interesting information that the day before a woman roughly answering the description of Miss White had been seen there. Delaverde himself was gone.

The building to which the detective took us was down-town in a residence section which had remained as a sort of little eddy to one side of the current of business that had swept everything before it up-town. It was an old building and large, and was entirely given over to studios of artists.

Into one of the cheapest of the suites we were directed. It was almost bare of furniture and in a peculiarly shiftless state of disorder. A half-finished picture stood in the centre of the room, and several completed ones were leaning against the wall. They were of the wildest character imaginable. Even the conceptions of the futurists looked tame in comparison.

Kennedy at once began rummaging and exploring.