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Show GOLD t N DA vV h ; i " By PETER B. KYNE Copyright by Bll Syndicate WN'U Borvlce. huml a copy of It to the man who Is to ili the operation. I've wired lilm that I was sending on a patient, and he lias agreed to care for her. I Bee by this morning's paper that Mac has been given a leave of absence." Tunny nodded. "When ure you and Dan to be married?" mar-ried?" "Tomorrow. We're flying to Iteno to uvold the three-day notice of Intention Inten-tion to marry demanded by the California Cali-fornia law." "l'enelope flying with you?" "Naturally. She's my bridesmaid! "Who's going to give the bride away?" "Nobody. f)an and I are too old to stand for a long drawn-out marriage ceremony. "Well, I suppose I'm stuck for a wedding wed-ding present. How much money have I got In the bank?" "Approximately twenty thousand. I'm going to buy you some Argentine bonds today. There's no reason why those bonds shouldn't be selling at " "Lanny, you're mercenary. I don't care for a dissertation on bonds. Draw yourself a check for ten thousand and spend It all In riotous living. Give old Dan a real blow out " MStevle, you're mad!" "Quiet, please. Love from the boss, Lanny, and no back talk from you. And for heaven's sake do get a half-way Intelligent In-telligent nurse to take your place while you're away." "I've engaged Miss Ordway." "Horrible. Her face would stop a parade. She's efficient, but terrible to look at." The tears were welling In Lanny's eyes, "Oh, Stevle, I want you to be safe while I'm away," she choked. Id I ' SYNOPSI3 T!morkr Oatlln af!oit a tjnby. nelope," In an effort to aolva liln matrimonial matri-monial troublftfl. Hut his wife hai never wanted her, and 1 1. -1 r affairs end In the divorce court. At a baseball fame a hall etrlkee tn-ye:t r-u!d l'enelope l'e-nelope on the no.ii. Mrs. jittlin uplrlta the child to Kurope. t;atlln wills lo-I lo-I nelope all hla money, and la about to I berfln a joan.'h for her when a motor j accident hla life. Some ten years later, In Hun Francin.-O, Stephen Hurt, 'rlalnK yminft pych Iri trlMt, .a prenented by Iiiin McNam.-irn. chief of police, will) I a new patient Nance P.elden, a kIH I with a dual perHonallty, for which her I "saddle none" la In part responsible. jMcNamnra does not think she Is a criminal and obtains Hurt's testimony I In court. Lanny, the doctor's olllce j nurse, la also won over. Nance's crlm-! crlm-! Inal record outweighs Doctor Hurt's ' explanation of her case and she Is sent to Han Quentln penitentiary. Nance ncapes, and kocs to I. army's apart-' apart-' ment. From one of the men In the ( boat on which the frlrl escaped Mc-Namara Mc-Namara learns that her real name Is I Penelope flatlln. lie also discovers that Hhe Is helross to 1700,000. Fearful of McNamara, In his ofllelal capacity, , I Nance flees. Lar.ny finds her In her .apartment, asleep Then she disappears, and McNamara learns that she Is llv-j llv-j Insr In Paris. He also discovers he Is In J love with Lar.ny. Stephen warns Penelope Pe-nelope by cable to leave Paris, as her I whereabouts are known. She flees be-I be-I fore the French police Bet on her trail, and pops back Into Lanny' home In (Ban Francisco. I CHAPTER X Continued 23 j "We'll not fix It In this city, my boy." Thus McNamara. "Why not?" "Because when that girl Is well she'll 'probably elect to live her life here, ,and I don't want a soul In this city, with the exception of ourselves, to know that once she had a saddle nose nd a dual personality." "We can trust the ethical Integrity of the man I purpose " "I'll trust nobody but myself and then not too much. Where Is the best plastic surgeon In this country?" "In New York city." "Lanny, I'll ask the police commission commis-sion for a sixty day leave of absence. We'll be married at once and take this child to New York with us, put her In a hospital there and have the job done. While It's being done we'll have our honeymoon." "Three Is a crowd on a honeymoon," honey-moon," Stephen warned. "It's nothing of the sort," Lanny de-feuded. de-feuded. "Stevle, you mind your own business. Dan and I know our way about" "Indeed? Well, Just because you're so contumacious, I'm going to tell you something. If I hadn't promoted this engagement, you and Dan would not now be engaged. Dan had you up on a pedestal which Is where you never belonged and you're so naturally man-shy man-shy you never even learned the rudiments rudi-ments of the come-on as practiced by the dullest, so I talked the matter up I" "You didn't talk It up to me." "No, but I listened sympathetically when you raved about what a grand wan Dan McNamara was, and my neck Is still stiff from nodding agreement. I told" Dan you were crazy about him and worked up his courage " "You're a liar," McNamara charged, feebly and without malice. "Dan McNamara Is one man who doesn't have to have help with his courage or thinking," Lanny declared prldefully. "And you do, Stephen Burt. You're adept at lording It over your befuddled patients, but Rebecca P. Lannlng Is a horse of another color." "I think I'll go home," Stephen retorted, re-torted, and went He was back In the morning with the Impedimenta of his profession. Penelope Pene-lope greeted him gravely. "Good morning. morn-ing. Doctor Burt." lie started. The strident note of (Nance Belden was gone from her voice. She spoke now In the low, level tone of the girl of breeding. Then she sat down, and they conversed for half an hour on topics of general Interest, but during that time she did not move once from her seat Her vocabulary was free of underworld expressions, her diction dic-tion perfect, her sentences grammatical. grammat-ical. "You have had a good night's rest, Miss Gatlin," he ventured. She nodded, smiling a little. "I am rot at all nervous this morning, Doctor Burt When I am very tired, or excited ex-cited about something, I am always horribly nervous." "And you get dreadfully depressed, do you not?" She nodded. "So depressed that at times I want to die." "Well, we might as well start your physical examination. I'm going to try to ascertain why you can't be cheerful always. There's a reason, of course, for your nervousness and depression, de-pression, so I want to examine you very meticulously and see If your trouble can be charged up to some physical condition. Let me feel your pulse." It was eighty-three, full and strong. Stephen's examination of the girl was as complete as modern medical science could make It and when the last laboratory report came In three days later he called Lanny In to discuss dis-cuss the glrL "With the exception of a subnormal chest expansion, Lanny, that girl Is without doubt the healthiest young woman I have ever examined. Her sole physical defect Is her nose. But for that I think she'd be a husky little athlete right now. She told me she always al-ways wanted to excel In tennis, golf and dancing well, of course she'd want to excel In something. She couldn't compete In good looks. I'll write "D my report on her and you can t , moon, I'll admit However, we'd set our liandi to tLe Job and we couldnt turn back, God help us." "Well, you have this consolation, my friend. Your Job is over, and mine will j commence when Lanny returns with the girl." I "D'ye think you can pull her through, lad?" "I'm sure I can, Dan. A psycho-neurosis psycho-neurosis generally Is Impossible to cure unless you know Its causative factors and can remove them. If you can do that, It's as simple as removing a wart Dan, have you looked up the girl's ancestry?" an-cestry?" "I have not." "Then do so immediately. We might run into a situation that will shed a bright, effulgent beam of light on my Job." "The attorney that handled Gatlln's affairs ought to be a good man to start with, Stephen. I'll motor to San Jose tomorrow and look him up. The bank will know who he Is." The bank president did know the name of the attorney, but added the disconcerting Information that the man had been dead six years. McNamara thereupon called the man's widow to ask If she still retained her late husband's hus-band's files. He had a faint hope that If she would permit him to look Into the Gatlin file he might find a clue. He was Informed to his amazement, that about two years and a half before, Mrs. Merton had called upon her, asked for the file and had been given It There was but one club In the city ; the Elks and McNamara wondered If Theodore Gatlin had belonged to that He discovered Gatlin had, and from the dining room steward, who remembered remem-bered Theodore Gatlin very well, he ascertained as-certained the names and addresses of three men with whom Gatlin had according to the steward, seemed very friendly. Of these three men, one was dead and the others were unable to shed any light upon the parentage of Gatlln's adopted daughter, although one man had a hazy recollection that the child's father had been an army officer and had been killed In the Philippines. The chiefs questionings, however, elicited the names of two women who had been friendly with Mrs. Gatlin, so McNamara McNa-mara called upon both. They could furnish him no Information beyond the fact that Mrs. Gatlin despised the child Penelope; that she had never been enthusiastic about the adoption; that she had never been kind to the girl; that Gatlin and Penelope had been Inseparable pals. They had a feeling that Mrs. Gatlin, while apparently appar-ently delighting In persecuting her husband, hus-band, was, nevertheless, Insanely Jealous Jeal-ous of his love for his adopted daughter; daugh-ter; that up to the day of her accident, Penelope had been a bright, healthy, ' normal child, fun-loving and affectionate affection-ate and humorous, and the delight of her foster father. CHAPTER XI Dan reported to Stephen, somewhat depressed, because he had returned, he thought without a scintilla of worthwhile worth-while Information. Stephen, however, thought otherwise. "I'll have to question ques-tion Mrs. Merton again," he decided. He rang for Miss Ordway. "Telephone to Mrs. Merton," he ordered, "and tell her I wish she'd drop In here some day soon. Tell her I'd like the latest report re-port on her health." "What are you going to do?" McNamara McNa-mara asked. "Hypnotize her again, of course. I've got to release her from the mental Inhibition In-hibition I set upon her In 'the case of her adopted daughter. Otherwise she'll not talk." A minute later Miss Ordway entered the room. "Mrs. Merton says she will be down for her Interview In half an hour. Doctor." "When she arrives, Dan, you step out Into the nurse's office until I have her under control; then I'll admit you. I want you to take copious notes." Mrs. Merton fluttered Into Stephen's consultation room forty minutes later. "Oh, Doctor Burt," she whined, "I'm so glad you've sent for me. My insomnia in-somnia is worse than ever," she wailed. "Oh, Doctor, do you think I'm going crazy?" "Not at all, not at all," he soothed her. "You are excited over nothing. But you are in a highly nervous condition, of course, and until you have settled down it would be useless for me to attempt to examine you. If you could have a little nap for, say half an hour on the couch in the next room, I'm sure you would awaken much refreshed." re-freshed." "Oh, If I could only sleep half an hour, Doctor, If I only could. What a relief It would be." "Nonsense, my dear lady. We doctors doc-tors have ways of Inducing sleep even In the most obstinate cases of Insomnia." In-somnia." At his command she lay down on the couch and Stephen place a cushion under un-der her head. Employing the appropriate appro-priate method of inducing hypnotic sleep, Stephen had her drowsy within .three minutes; in ten minutes she had passed Into a profound state and Stephen summoned McNamara, gave him a pad and pencil and silently Indicated Indi-cated a chair. Mrs. Merton, however, was aware of his presence. "Who's there?" she demanded de-manded In a drowsy tone. "Doctor McNamara, Mrs. Merton. I have called him la to confer with ma on your case." TO B OONTINUSl She Nodded, "So Depressed That at Times I Want to Die." "No hoity-toity young thing with her sweet smile and winning ways and you such a softy oh, Stevle, Stevle, I can't bear to leave you. If I do, something dreadful will happen to you." And Lanny laid her head on her desk and sobbed quite heartily. However, Stephen knew what was good for Lanny. "You make me 111," he said coldly. "You carry on like a girl of sixteen." Instantly Lanny was furious. "You don't appreciate me," she charged. "Be still Where's the check book? On an occasion such as the present I suppose I should sign the check myself." my-self." "It wouldn't do any good If you did, darling. You've never registered your signature at your bank and you have no authority to sign checks on your own bank account. How funny I" and Lanny commenced to laugh. "How lucky I thought of that before leaving!" leav-ing!" Thereupon Stephen put both-arms around her and kissed her three times and told her she was as the shadow of a rock In a weary land ; that she was very dear to him ; that whatever she did was 'O. K. with him and he'd miss having his daily fight with her; and finally so softened her that she consented to let him By to Reno and give the bride away. It developed that she had always wanted him to do this but loathed putting him to so much trouble. At the expiration of his leave McNamara Mc-Namara returned to duty, but Lanny remained with Penelope in New York. Performed by a master, the operation had proved successful thus far. The actual work of the operation had been the least of It; the subsequent care of the bone and skin graft and the surgeon's sur-geon's artistry in reshaping the nose were what required time and patience. Lanny reported that the patient would not be discharged for at- least three months more. "How did Penelope approach the operation?" Stephen queried of McNamara. Mc-Namara. "Happily. Not a whit nervous. Lanny Lan-ny had complete control over her." He grinned. "I passed as her Dncle Dan and the wife as Aunt Lanny. Lanny saw to It that the girl didn't do any talking while the doctor was present" "You're a good fellow, Dan." "Well," McNamara admitted humorously, humor-ously, "it wasn't much of a honey. |