I had not stopped to ask questions and prolong the conversation,
knowing as I did the fuming impatience of O'Connor. It was relief
enough to know that Kennedy was located at last.

He was in the psychopathic ward with Barron, as I hurried in. The
girl whom he had mentioned over the telephone was then quietly
sleeping under the influence of an opiate, and they were
discussing the case outside in the hall.

"What do you think of it yourself?" Barron was asking, nodding to
me to join them. Then he added for my enlightenment: "I found this
girl wandering bareheaded in the street. To tell the truth, I
thought at first that she was intoxicated, but a good look showed
me better than that. So I hustled the poor thing into my car and
brought her here. All the way she kept crying over and over:
'Look, don't you see it? She's afire! Her lips shine--they shine,
they shine.' I think the girl is demented and has had some
hallucination."

"Too vivid for a hallucination," remarked Kennedy decisively. "It
was too real to her. Even the opiate couldn't remove the picture,
whatever it was, from her mind until you had given her almost
enough to kill her, normally. No, that wasn't any hallucination.
Now, Walter, I'm ready."




III