Page:Arthur B Reeve - The Dream Doctor.djvu/265

 and in a car of bis own, often in the past with Loraine Keith, but lately alone.

It was toward the close of the afternoon that Carton called up hurriedly. As Kennedy hung up the receiver, I read on his face that something had gone wrong.

"Haddon has disappeared," he announced, "mysteriously and suddenly, without leaving so much as a clue. It seems that he found in his office a package exactly like that which was sent to Carton earlier in the day. He didn't wait to say anything about it, but left. Carton is bringing it over here."

Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, Carton himself deposited the package on the laboratory table with an air of relief. We looked eagerly. It was addressed to Haddon at the Mayfair in the same disguised handwriting and was done up in precisely the same fashion.

"Lots of bombs are just scare bombs," observed Craig. "But you never can tell."

Again Kennedy had started to dissect.

"Ah," he went on, "this is the real thing, though, only a little different from the other. A dry battery gives a spark when the lid is slipped back. See, the explosive is in a steel pipe. Sliding the lid off is supposed to explode it. Why, there is enough explosive in this to have silenced a dozen Haddons."

"Do you think he could have been kidnapped or murdered?" I asked. "What is this, anyhow—gang-war?"

"Or perhaps bribed?" suggested Carton.

"I can't say," ruminated Kennedy. "But I can say