THE “HAPPY DUST”
Veda Blair’s rescue from the strange use that was made of the venom
came at a time when the city was aroused as it never had been before
over the nation-wide agitation against drugs.
Already, it will be recalled, Kennedy and I had had some recent
experience with dope fiends of various kinds, but this case I set down
because it drew us more intimately into the crusade.
“I’ve called on you, Professor Kennedy, to see if I can’t interest you
in the campaign I am planning against drugs.”
Mrs. Claydon Sutphen, social leader and suffragist, had scarcely more
than introduced herself when she launched earnestly into the reason for
her visit to us.
“You don’t realize it, perhaps,” she continued rapidly, “but very often
a little silver bottle of tablets is as much a necessary to some women
of the smart set as cosmetics.”
“I’ve heard of such cases,” nodded Craig encouragingly.
“Well, you see I became interested in the subject,” she added, “when I
saw some of my own friends going down. That’s how I came to plan the
campaign in the first place.”
She paused, evidently nervous. “I’ve been threatened, too,” she went
on, “but I’m not going to give up the fight. People think that drugs
are a curse only to the underworld, but they have no idea what inroads
the habit has made in the upper world, too. Oh, it is awful!” she
exclaimed.
Suddenly, she leaned over and whispered, “Why, there’s my own sister,
Mrs. Garrett. She began taking drugs after an operation, and now they
have a terrible hold on her. I needn’t try to conceal anything. It’s
all been published in the papers—everybody knows it. Think of
it—divorced, disgraced, all through these cursed drugs! Dr. Coleman,
our family physician, has done everything known to break up the habit,
but he hasn’t succeeded.”
Dr. Coleman, I knew, was a famous society physician. If he had failed,
I wondered why she thought a detective might succeed. But it was
evidently another purpose she had in mind in introducing the subject.
“So you can understand what it all means to me, personally,” she
resumed, with a sigh. “I’ve studied the thing—I’ve been forced to study
it. Why, now the exploiters are even making drug fiends of
mere—children!”
Mrs. Sutphen spread out a crumpled sheet of note paper before us on
which was written something in a trembling scrawl. “For instance,
here’s a letter I received only yesterday.”
Kennedy glanced over it carefully. It was signed “A Friend,” and read:
“I have heard of your drug war in the newspapers and wish to help you,
only I don’t dare to do so openly. But I can assure you that if you
will investigate what I am about to tell you, you will soon be on the
trail of those higher up in this terrible drug business. There is a
little center of the traffic on West 66th Street, just off Broadway. I
cannot tell you more, but if you can investigate it, you will be doing
more good than you can possibly realize now. There is one girl there,
whom they call ‘Snowbird.’ If you could only get hold of her quietly
and place her in a sanitarium you might save her yet.”
Craig was more than ordinarily interested. “And the children—what did
you mean by that?”
“Why, it’s literally true,” asserted Mrs. Sutphen in a horrified tone.
“Some of the victims are actually school children. Up there in 66th
Street we have found a man named Armstrong, who seems to be very
friendly with this young girl whom they call ‘Snowbird.’ Her real name,
by the way, is Sawtelle, I believe. She can’t be over eighteen, a mere
child, yet she’s a slave to the stuff.”
“Oh, then you have actually already acted on the hint in the letter?”
asked Craig.
“Yes,” she replied, “I’ve had one of the agents of our Anti-Drug
Society, a social worker, investigating the neighborhood.”
Kennedy nodded for her to go on.
“I’ve even investigated myself a little, and now I want to employ some
one to break the thing up. My husband had heard of you and so here I
am. Can you help me?”
There was a note of appeal in her voice that was irresistible to a man
who had the heart of Kennedy.
“Tell me just what you have discovered so far,” he asked simply.
“Well,” she replied slowly, “after my agent verified the contents of
the letter, I watched until I saw this girl—she’s a mere child, as I
said—going to a cabaret in the neighborhood. What struck me was that I
saw her go in looking like a wreck and come out a beautiful creature,
with bright eyes, flushed cheeks, almost youthful again. A most
remarkable girl she is, too,” mused Mrs. Sutphen, “who always wears a
white gown, white hat, white shoes and white stockings. It must be a
mania with her.”
Mrs. Sutphen seemed to have exhausted her small store of information,
and as she rose to go Kennedy rose also. “I shall be glad to look into
the case, Mrs. Sutphen,” he promised. “I’m sure there is something that
can be done—there must be.”
“Thank you, ever so much,” she murmured, as she paused at the door,
something still on her mind. “And perhaps, too,” she added, “you may
run across my sister, Mrs. Garrett.”
“Indeed,” he assured her, “if there is anything I can possibly do that
will assist you personally, I shall be only too happy to do it.”
“Thank you again, ever so much,” she repeated with just a little choke
in her voice.
For several moments Kennedy sat contemplating the anonymous letter
which she had left with him, studying both its contents and the
handwriting.
“We must go over the ground up there again,” he remarked finally.
“Perhaps we can do better than Mrs. Sutphen and her drug investigator
have done.”
Half an hour later we had arrived and were sauntering along the street
in question, walking slowly up and down in the now fast-gathering dusk.
It was a typical cheap apartment block of variegated character, with
people sitting idly on the narrow front steps and children spilling out
into the roadway in imminent danger of their young lives from every
passing automobile.
On the crowded sidewalk a creation in white hurtled past us. One glance
at the tense face in the flickering arc light was enough for Kennedy.
He pulled my arm and we turned and followed at a safe distance.
She looked like a girl who could not have been more than eighteen, if
she was as old as that. She was pretty, too, but already her face was
beginning to look old and worn from the use of drugs. It was
unmistakable.
In spite of the fact that she was hurrying, it was not difficult to
follow her in the crowd, as she picked her way in and out, and finally
turned into Broadway where the white lights were welcoming the night.
Under the glare of a huge electric sign she stopped a moment, then
entered one of the most notorious of the cabarets.
We entered also at a discreet distance and sat down at a table.
“Don’t look around, Walter,” whispered Craig, as the waiter took our
order, “but to your right is Mrs. Sutphen.”
If he had mentioned any other name in the world, I could not have been
more surprised. I waited impatiently until I could pick her out from
the corner of my eye. Sure enough, it was Mrs. Sutphen and another
woman. What they were doing there I could not imagine, for neither had
the look of habitues of such a place.
I followed Kennedy’s eye and found that he was gazing furtively at a
flashily dressed young man who was sitting alone at the far end in a
sort of booth upholstered in leather.
The girl in white, whom I was now sure was Miss Sawtelle, went over and
greeted him. It was too far to see just what happened, but the young
woman after sitting down rose and left almost immediately. As nearly as
I could make out, she had got something from him which she had dropped
into her handbag and was now hugging the handbag close to herself
almost as if it were gold.
We sat for a few minutes debating just what to do, when Mrs. Sutphen
and her friend rose. As she passed out, a quick, covert glance told us
to follow. We did so and the two turned into Broadway.
“Let me present you to Miss McCann,” introduced Mrs. Sutphen as we
caught up with them. “Miss McCann is a social worker and trained
investigator whom I’m employing.”
We bowed, but before we could ask a question, Mrs. Sutphen cried
excitedly: “I think I have a clue, anyway. We’ve traced the source of
the drugs at least as far as that young fellow, ‘Whitecap,’ whom you
saw in there.”
I had not recognized his face, although I had undoubtedly seen pictures
of him before. But no sooner had I heard the name than I recognized it
as that of one of the most notorious gang leaders on the West Side.
Not only that, but Whitecap’s gang played an important part in local
politics. There was scarcely a form of crime or vice to which Whitecap
and his followers could not turn a skilled hand, whether it was
swinging an election, running a gambling club, or dispensing “dope.”
“You see,” she explained, “even before I saw you, my suspicions were
aroused and I determined to obtain some of the stuff they are using up
here, if possible. I realized it would be useless for me to try to get
it myself, so I got Miss McCann from the Neighborhood House to try it.
She got it and has turned the bottle over to me.”
“May I see it?” asked Craig eagerly.
Mrs. Sutphen reached hastily into her handbag, drew forth a small brown
glass bottle and handed it to him. Craig retreated into one of the less
dark side streets. There he pulled out the paraffinned cork from the
bottle, picked out a piece of cotton stuffed in the neck of the bottle
and poured out some flat tablets that showed a glistening white in the
palm of his hand. For an instant he regarded them.
“I may keep these?” he asked.
“Certainly,” replied Mrs. Sutphen. “That’s what I had Miss McCann get
them for.”
Kennedy dropped the bottle into his pocket.
“So that was the gang leader, ‘Whitecap,’” he remarked as we turned
again to Broadway.
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Sutphen. “At certain hours, I believe he can be
found at that cabaret selling this stuff, whatever it is, to anyone who
comes properly introduced. The thing seems to be so open and notorious
that it amounts to a scandal.”
We parted a moment later, Mrs. Sutphen and Miss McCann to go to the
settlement house, Craig and I to continue our investigations.
“First of all, Walter,” he said as we swung aboard an uptown car, “I
want to stop at the laboratory.”
In his den, which had been the scene of so many triumphs, Kennedy began
a hasty examination of the tablets, powdering one and testing it with
one chemical after another.
“What are they?” I asked at length when he seemed to have found the
right reaction which gave him the clue.
“Happy dust,” he answered briefly.
“Happy dust?” I repeated, looking at him a moment in doubt as to
whether he was joking or serious. “What is that?”
“The Tenderloin name for heroin—a comparatively new derivative of
morphine. It is really morphine treated with acetic acid which renders
it more powerful than morphine alone.”
“How do they take them? What’s the effect?” I asked.
“The person who uses heroin usually powders the tablets and snuffs the
powder up the nose,” he answered. “In a short time, perhaps only two or
three weeks, one can become a confirmed victim of ‘happy dust.’ And
while one is under its influence he is morally, physically and mentally
irresponsible.”
Kennedy was putting away the paraphernalia he had used, meanwhile
talking about the drug. “One of the worst aspects of it, too,” he
continued, “is the desire of the user to share his experience with some
one else. This passing on of the habit, which seems to be one of the
strongest desires of the drug fiend, makes him even more dangerous to
society than he would otherwise be. It makes it harder for anyone once
addicted to a drug to shake it off, for his friends will give him no
chance. The only thing to do is to get the victim out of his
environment and into an entirely new scene.”
The laboratory table cleared again, Kennedy had dropped into a deep
study.
“Now, why was Mrs. Sutphen there?” he asked aloud. “I can’t think it
was solely through her interest for that girl they call Snowbird. She
was interested in her, but she made no attempt to interfere or to
follow her. No, there must have been another reason.”
“You don’t think she’s a dope fiend herself, do you?” I asked
hurriedly.
Kennedy smiled. “Hardly, Walter. If she has any obsession on the
subject, it is more likely to lead her to actual fanaticism against all
stimulants and narcotics and everything connected with them. No, you
might possibly persuade me that two and two equal five—but not
seventeen. It’s not very late. I think we might make another visit to
that cabaret and see whether the same thing is going on yet.”