Fleming Stone stopped at the hospital on his way to the station and asked for Doctor Eaton and for the nurse who had been with Emily during the early morning hours.
“You see, doctor,” the detective said, “our suspicions are well founded. I don’t know where Emily has been kept these six days, but we do know who kept her captive. We don’t know how she got out, and we can’t know until either she or her captor tells us.”
They talked a few moments longer and then the nurse they had summoned appeared.
“Has Miss Duane said anything rational?” Stone asked her.
“Not rational, no,” she replied. “But she babbles a great deal. Most of it is incoherent and of no sense at all. But some few phrases recur continually. She is always asking for a pen, but given either a pen or a pencil, she cannot use t
