Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/153

 some one has succeeded in having him declared 'insane,' I should supply. If he is in an institution near New York, we must be able to locate him. Edward, this is a very important clue. There is nothing else."

Kennedy employed the remainder of the night in obtaining a list of all the institutions, both public and private, within a considerable radius of the city where the insane might be detained.

The next morning, after an hour or so spent in the laboratory apparently in confirming some control tests which Kennedy had laid out to make sure that he was not going wrong in the line of inquiry he was pursuing, we started off in a series of flying visits to the various sanitaria about the city in search of an inmate named Thornton.

I will not attempt to describe the many curious sights and experiences we saw and had. I could readily believe that any one who spent even as little time as we did might almost think that the very world was going rapidly insane. There were literally thousands of names in the lists which we examined patiently, going through them all, since Kennedy was not at all sure that Thornton might not be a first name, and we had no time to waste on taking any chances.

It was not until long after dusk that, weary with the search and dust-covered from our hasty scouring of the country in an automobile which Kennedy had hired after exhausting the city institutions, we came to a small private asylum up in Westchester. I had almost been willing to give it up for the day, to start