Just one week after Vickery's last call, the district attorney and the city solicitor met in the mayor's office. The former official, Robert Joyce, was a young man with most of his reputation to gain; and he had welcomed the Vickery case as an excellent weapon with which to gain it. How he had happened to win his office was a cause for wonder to some people, until they stopped to remember that all interest in the election of the previous winter had been centered on the mayor; and that although the rank and file of voters knew that Joyce was making a fight for his candidacy, none of them had believed he could win over the old incumbent, and had paid little heed to his political efforts. His election was one of the surprises of the campaign, but even that was not much talked about, in the excitement of proclaiming the woman for mayor of Roma.

Now, as once before, he saw his opportunity and seized it. For the past week he had done little else but probe the affairs of the Boulevard Railway scheme, scarcely eating or sleeping while he pursued the case with all the eagerness of a hound after his first fox. Gertrude Van Deusen could not have found a better ally than Robert Joyce, and she knew it. He had already secured evidence and managed his case so well that the grand jury would bring in a bill for indictment, not only against Orlando Vickery, but against Otis H. Mann, chairman of the board of aldermen. The case was to be brought up in court on the following morning.

"I must congratulate you, Mr. Joyce, upon your quick and able work," said she. "I wanted the case hurried along, and you have surely done it."

"Mr. Armstrong has helped greatly," returned Joyce. "He has a good deal of inside knowledge, and it didn't take long to convince us both that there was a vast amount of corruption. How to clinch the evidence has been the problem. But you say you are willing to go on the witness stand?"

"I am—and Miss Snow also," answered the mayor. "I should think our evidence enough."

"It is; and yet, while we are about it we want to catch the whole outfit. We don't want to leave any loop-holes for the criminals—for they will have an expert to defend them; you may be sure of that. Some of the old aldermen may confess. They will pin their faith to confession as the rock of salvation for them. But that is just the beginning. We are after the big man, the man who debauches as well as the man who receives. This is no partial house-cleaning. Fordham, the agent of the Roma Telephone Company, who handed the old board $1,000 each, is now on his way back from China. To save his skin, he may tell us about the money which his corporation has so generously handed over to the supervisors. Then the Telephone Company, composed of men high in the social circles of this city (with its franchise bought for a paltry few thousand dollars) will have to show its books, and if we can reach the guilty ones, on the top, indictments will soon be moving their way. I think within the next month we will have indictments from the grand jury for at least four of the more-holier-than-thou sort. That is where the bomb is going to fall, unless my plans miscarry most woefully."

"You see there are lively times ahead," added Bailey Armstrong. "There is a man—one on whom a great deal depends—whom we want to bring to confession. He is the son of your father's old coachman—Fitzgerald."

"Newton Fitzgerald?" asked Gertrude. "The one who has a saloon over on the south side?"

"Yes—and, unfortunately for us, a properly certified license," answered Bailey. "He is a tough character, but when a boy he had a soft side. Do you suppose you could reach him, Gertie?"

"Possibly," she answered thoughtfully. "I used to have a good deal of influence over Newton when he lived in our cottage as a boy. Don't you remember—I got him to go to school regularly, and saved him from the truant officer's clutches on two or three occasions?"

"He used to swear by you," said Bailey. "Couldn't you manage to see him now, and get him to talk?"

"Get him to confess, if you can," added Joyce. "Offer him immunity if he will tell you all he knows—and I suspect that is a good deal."

"Yes, I'll do that," answered the mayor. "I'll telephone now to his place and ask him to come over and see me."

They talked on for another half-hour, and when the two men left, their plans were all made. Gertrude and Mary Snow were to appear at the court house next morning, both ready to give valuable testimony against the grafters, testimony which would convict them out of Vickery's own mouth.

When she was alone, Gertrude at once took up her telephone and called up Newton Fitzgerald's saloon.

"Is Mr. Fitzgerald in?" she asked.

"He has just stepped out," was the answer.

"Tell him, when he comes in, to please call at the mayor's office before he goes home," replied Gertrude, "Miss Van Deusen wishes to speak with him."

She hung up her receiver and turned back to the duties of her desk. It was nearly five o'clock before she heard anything further. Then her telephone rang and a strange voice came over the wire.

"Mr. Fitzgerald has fallen and sprained his knee. He has to be put to bed, but wants to know if you won't come to see him tonight. He wants to talk with you about the investigation—has something to tell you."

"Where does he live?" asked the mayor.

"In the Sutherland," was the reply, "the big apartment building back of the American House."

"Very well. Tell him I will be there with Miss Snow at eight o'clock," she answered; and then she called Mary Snow and told her of the appointment.

"Don't you think we ought to take someone else along?—a man—Bailey Armstrong, say?"

"O, no," returned the Mayor, confidently. "Fitzgerald would not talk before him—or any other man—in my opinion. He was a peculiar boy, but I could manage him. It will be better for us to go alone—and quietly. We won't even take the carriage. I'll come down on the car at a quarter before eight and meet you at Harne's drug store. Then we'll just go quietly up to Fitzgerald's flat. I know his wife."

"Very well," said Mary. If she did not feel quite satisfied with the plan, it was not for her to question the mayor's authority, and she said no more.

But the next morning the newspapers brought a new sensation to a startled city. Two important pieces of news furnished excitement enough to arouse even the staid and respectable old Atlas. People gathered in knots on street corners to discuss them. The air was breezy with excitement. The street corners were blocked with gathering knots of indignant citizens, eager crowds gathered in front of newspaper bulletin boards, questioning among themselves whether there was any respect for law and order left in Roma; whether life was safe on the open street; whether the public was to be fooled any longer by charlatans and tricksters; whether the police could or would do anything in the premises. In short, every citizen of Roma, rich or poor, old or young, was aroused at last by these two bits of news.

The startling news was—

Orlando Vickery had "jumped his bail" and disappeared; and

The Mayor and her private secretary had not been seen nor heard from since they left the drug-store the previous evening at a quarter before eight.

It would seem that in a city of fifty thousand inhabitants, it would be impossible for the Mayor and his (or her) private secretary to drop so suddenly and completely from sight as to leave no trace or clue behind them; yet such was the fact. Knowing Fitzgerald to be of a peculiar temperament, Gertrude had arranged to meet him as quietly as possible. Had her cousin, Jessie Craig, been at home, she would have told her where she was going, but that lady had gone to Philadelphia for a few days' visit, and there was no one in the Van Deusen home but the servants, to whom Miss Van Deusen had merely remarked that she was going out and would be back, probably, about ten.

Mary Snow lived in an apartment hotel and occupied her two-room suite in spinster independence, carrying her own latch-key and accounting to no one for her goings and comings. So accustomed had the clerks and elevator-boys become to seeing her come in, during her newspaper days, at all hours of the night, that they paid little heed to her movements. So there was no one to feel any alarm when midnight came and they did not return from their excursion to the suffering Fitzgerald.

Towards morning, however, when Miss Van Deusen failed to appear, the old butler who had known her so many years, became alarmed, and at daylight telephoned to Bailey Armstrong. The news came to him with a shock, but he went at once to Miss Snow's hotel, thinking the Mayor might have stayed there for some reason. When he found them both missing, he became alarmed, sent for the chief of police and the district attorney, and telegraphed Jessie Craig to return.

A systematic search was instituted, detectives set to work, and all the majestic machinery of the law put in motion. It had happened strangely enough, that the proprietor of the drug-store which had been their rendezvous was out when the two women had met there, and neither of the two young clerks knew the Mayor or her secretary by sight. Consequently, there was not a soul who had seen or recognized either of them after they had set out for the appointment with Fitzgerald. Neither had anyone known of that appointment; nor would it have mattered in the least if they had, since, Fitzgerald himself, alive and well, had known nothing of the engagement made in his name, and was even now talking loudly against the outrage and the shame of what was plainly foul play.

"Kidnaping," every other man said, and believed, and the detectives were on a still hunt again for the mysterious electric cab of election eve. In this particular line of search John Allingham was bending all his energies. Every garage in the city was visited and made to account for each one of its machines. No chauffeur was left unquestioned, and the records were thoroughly examined—all with the foolish consciousness that nothing could be easier than for some private owner or renter of an automobile to have skimmed quietly away with the mayor in his tonneau, quite out of reach of the law. As the day passed, rumors of flying automobiles came in from all directions, making a hopeless confusion of clues that led nowhere.

At City Hall, the chairman of the board of aldermen took the helm, becoming acting-mayor for the time being. Although he directed the search for the mayor and her secretary with much skill and patience, the Honorable Otis H. Mann was enjoying an inflated sense of independence, such as does not come often to a small man on large occasions.

As the day closed and no news came from the missing women, the excitement grew. Crowds gathered on the streets and squares, until someone, by a happy thought, called for a mass-meeting in Masonic Temple. If Gertrude could have heard the speeches made there, and noted the sympathy and pride of her townspeople, she would have felt her strength renewed as the eagle. For however they might have been divided in opinion before, every man, woman and child were solidly for her now. A great wave of indignation had swept the city, and left the public heart alive with love and sorrow for the brave young woman who had dared take up this burden. Although they talked hopefully and determinedly of perfecting their search and restoring her to her office, many a heart was cherishing a great fear that death, or worse than death, had already overtaken her.

"A terrible thing has befallen us," one of the speakers was saying. "And an awful state of affairs exists when the mayor of our own city can be completely swallowed up—and hidden from all pursuit—in an evening. When we remember that it is a woman—two women—of the highest breeding and inheritance who have been so foully dealt with, we are overwhelmed with a sense of disaster."

"But we must find a way—we must organize our forces," interrupted another. "They must, they shall be found."

There was much ardent talk, but little practical advice, and when Bailey Armstrong and John Allingham left the hall together, the hearts of both were heavy.

"I'd give all I've got in the world to find those two," said Bailey. "But between you and me, it looks pretty dark. There was something queer about it. Why should Gertrude go out at night alone? Why didn't she call on me to go with her? She often did, if no one else was going—from the house, I mean."

"Did you hear her say anything about an appointment?—or Miss Snow?" asked Allingham. "Evidently they had one."

"Not a word. I was in the office yesterday. We talked things over, some. I asked her—" Bailey stopped. "Say, she was going to telephone Newton Fitzgerald to come up. You don't suppose he's in it?"

"Let's go over to his saloon," said Allingham. "Here's a car coming now."

But when they got over there, Fitzgerald was declaiming loudly gainst the rotten politics of Roma.

"I've known her since she was a kid," he was saying to a gang of beery individuals around his door, "and she's been an angel of light to me an' mine. I voted for her—yes, I'm proud to say I did, against the party though it was. And I shall do it again, if she comes back alive. Why, I found a note on my desk this morning when I came in, that my barkeeper put there, saying she'd telephoned for me to come up to the Hall yesterday afternoon. I'd a' gone, only I was out of town and didn't get back here last night at all. Mebbe I'd 've been of use to her some way if I'd been on time. Anyway, I'm going on a still hunt for her tomorrow, all by my lonesome."

"He's sincere enough," remarked Bailey. "Newton's a good-hearted fellow. He always liked Gertrude."

They walked back and soon separated for the night, but neither of them slept, for thinking of those two, so suddenly and mysteriously snatched away.

As John Allingham walked home he lived over again the exciting evening before election. He recalled the moonlit night, the rushing automobile, the ghostly shadows chasing themselves in swift procession ever behind him. He remembered the shock and the overturn and finding himself face to face with Gertrude Van Deusen on the pine-shaded road. He lived again through the rushing ride home, hearing again her silvery voice as she talked, and feeling again the indefinable charm of her presence. He forgot—that she was doing a man's work; he thought only of her femininity and grace and beauty. Then, realizing afresh the calamity that had befallen the city, he groaned aloud.

"Oh, my God!" he muttered. "If she is lost—"

Then he knew, all suddenly and with a great heartache, that he loved a woman—that she was Gertrude Van Deusen—and that she was lost, and that she might be dead, or in great misery and sorrow.

"Good God," he cried, "what can I do to help her?"

A week later, there was a meeting of the city council, at the mayor's office, called by the chairman of the board of aldermen, to "discuss the unusual state of affairs and find a way out," as Mr. Otis H. Mann put it. Every member was present, and Mr. Mann counted his supporters carefully as he opened the meeting for business. The mayor's friends were strong and outspoken, he decided, but they were not in the majority. He began by making a rather neat speech, deploring the state of things in Roma, and trusting that the citizens' committee, which had been organized the week before for the purpose of discovering the absent officials, would be successful.

"A terrible condition of municipal affairs exists," he went on smoothly, "when its chief magistrate can be abducted and kept hidden, without—or with?—her own volition for a whole week. Only in the extravaganzas of modern romance could we look for similar happenings. Just what is our duty in the premises, gentlemen, is a serious question. The citizens' committee has taken the work of restoring our mayor to her place out of our hands; but I think we should assure them of our co-operation and offer to place every means of assistance at their disposal. Will some one make a motion to that effect?"

The motion was quickly made and seconded, but before it was put Mr. Turner was on his feet.

"I wish to be put on record," he began, "as of the opinion that it is nothing to our credit that the citizens had to call a mass-meeting and form their own committee. We should have led in this work, and if we could not do that, every one of us should have been on the committee. May I inquire why but five of the councilmen are identified with the movement to find Miss Van Deusen and her secretary—to discover the perpetrators of this outrage and bring them to punishment?"

"The member is unduly excited," replied the chairman, in his most unctuous tones. "It is not easy to know what to do in the position which has suddenly been forced upon me—a condition without precedent, so far as I know, in the whole country. If I have failed in my duty, I ask your pardon; but with so many local issues—so many details at loose ends in the mayor's office—I beg your pardon, gentlemen, for mentioning this."

"Question, question," called a voice with a strong accent from the back row. "Question—I call for the question," echoed another.

The chairman hastened to put the motion and the expression of sympathy and co-operation with the citizens' committee was unanimous.

"The motion seems to prevail—the motion prevails. The secretary is instructed to communicate this vote at once," added the chairman.

"And now I must add, by the force of stringent necessity which I find in my endeavor to carry on the work of our mayor," said the chairman, "that it became necessary for us to transact a little business here tonight. Exigencies are arising which make it important to have some action taken on the sub-letting of contracts. Will some member move that the present incumbent be given discretionary power to act in these matters?"

"No, no," shouted Turner, and was echoed by two or three others. But Blatchley rose and moved that the chairman of the board of aldermen be allowed to go ahead with all the city's business during the indefinite absence of the mayor, using his discretion therein.

The motion was seconded by several others and when Mr. Mason arose, there was a chorus of "Question, question," from the opposite faction. He would not give way, however, and stood his ground for some moments, arguing for fair play, and finally offering a substitute motion, asking that no contracts be given out and only routine business be transacted while the present crisis was on; but he might as well have talked to the vagrant wind. Not over half a dozen men present were in entire sympathy with him, and they were helpless. It soon became evident that the others had been primed for this meeting—as indeed was the case, every doubtful one having been called to a private confab with the acting mayor, and promised something for good behavior.

"Isn't there an ordinance that prevents our taking any action whatever, until the mayor has been absent a fortnight?" finally asked Mason.

"That ordinance was changed two years ago," replied the chairman. "The time is now limited to one week."

"And you have waited just that," replied Mr. Mason, sitting down. He saw it was impossible to struggle any longer.

So the acting mayor was given full power to do what he pleased while the mayor was still secluded. Fortunately, it was voted to keep this decision from the newspapers; for feeling was growing daily more bitter against the city council, and the people were already asking how much the aldermen knew about the abduction of their woman-mayor, and why they were not more active in the search for her.

When they arrived at the address given them, they found a big apartment block, with stores underneath. There was no one in the vestibule as they entered, but a man stood waiting at the elevator—apparently the functionary who had charge of the lift.

"Does Newton Fitzgerald live here?" asked Gertrude.

The man motioned to the elevator and the two young women entered and were quickly borne to the top floor.

"This way," said the man, leading the way down a narrow corridor, and pressing an electric button at the last door on the right.

It was opened by a neatly dressed Irish woman, who led the way into a comfortably furnished living-room.

"Be seated," she said. "I'll be back in a while." She spoke with a brogue, and they did not notice the peculiar expression. For some moments they remained quietly waiting; but no one came.

"He must be pretty sick, the place is so quiet," said Mary Snow, at last.

"Probably," assented Gertrude. "But I suppose they'll call us when they are ready."

Fifteen minutes, thirty, forty-five—an hour went by, and still no one came. The place was oppressively still. The electric lights burned brightly; a breeze came in from an open window; the street sounds below floated up to them, insistent and garish. But no rustle of garments, no hushed voices, no slightest motion in the rooms beyond came through the door.

"This is strange," said Gertrude at last. "Newton must be very ill—or something." She arose. "I wonder if we'd better investigate. I hate to intrude, but we ought to be getting back, I didn't tell anybody at home where I was going."

"Nor I—I didn't tell anybody," said Mary. "I thought we should be back long ago. Yes, let us find someone."

They went on through the open door into a bedroom. Out of this opened a small dining room, and beyond that a little kitchen. There was a tiny bathroom, and lights were burning in all the rooms. But there was no sign of the sick man.

They looked at one another, puzzled and anxious.

"They seem to have gone out," said Mary. "Here is another bedroom. Perhaps Fitzgerald is here."

But the bed, all clean and white, had not been disturbed.

Simultaneously, they turned and went back to the door by which they had entered the flat. It was locked.

"We've been trapped," said Gertrude in a low voice. "Let's look through the place."

They began another search, opening closet doors and looking into wardrobes and cupboards and under the furniture. They went to the kitchen and tried the door into the back passage; but that, too, was locked. There was nobody else in the flat; there was no possible way of getting out.

"The windows," said Gertrude. "There should be fire escapes."

But there were not. They could not raise the windows from the bottom, either, although they could lower them slightly from the top for air. They climbed up and peeped over, only to discover that they were seven stories from the ground, and looked only into a light-well. The flat across from them was unoccupied.

They looked at their watches. It was ten o'clock—even then the churches were chiming out the hour.

"Let us look for a note, or some intimation of what to expect," said Mary. "I wonder if they are going to keep us here all night."

"It's a trick," said Gertrude. "There's no knowing how long we may stay—nor what will happen to us. I'm glad I thought of this before I started out alone tonight." And she produced a small revolver from her coat pocket.

"Mercy!" cried Mary, "do you carry that? Would you know how to use it?"

"I carried it when father and I walked through the Pyrenees a few years ago," answered Gertrude. "I used it once—to good advantage—and I could again, if I had to," she added. "Now, let us see what the gods—or the other thing—have provided."

Another search showed them that their flat was well-provisioned, well-furnished, heated and lighted. There were a few books and magazines, a piano, a writing desk, even a pack of playing cards.

"We may have to resort to solitaire yet," laughed Mary. "Though nothing short of imprisonment could induce me to fool away my time with the silly game."

"Well, they have provided for an indefinite stay, I fear," said Gertrude. "Somehow, I have a feeling that we are not going to get out easily. We must think up some way of letting our friends know we are here."

But their jailers had looked out for that. They could hang towels from their upper windows, but to what end, since these could not be seen?

There was no stationery in the desk, but Mary had a pocket diary in her chatelaine bag. "We will write a note and shove it through the crack under the door," they said—and did, repeatedly, the ensuing week—but no answer came.

"I should think somebody would question the elevator boy," said Mary. "Or, that, when he hears we are gone, he will remember bringing us here."

"That was not the regular boy—depend upon it," answered Gertrude. "It was one of the conspirators, if there was a conspiracy, and he will not tell. It was Orlando Vickery who was behind this."

"Shall we go to bed tonight?" asked Mary.

"No, indeed," said Gertrude. "We couldn't possibly sleep. And besides—something might happen."

But nothing did happen. The slow night wore away and morning came. When the whistles below were calling people to their work, the two young women got up from their couch and easy-chair, and went to the windows again; but they could see nothing but the blank wall of a light-well. They were trapped and helpless.

"Well, we may as well be philosophical while we can," said Mary. "There are coffee and breakfast things in the pantry. I saw them last night. I'm used to getting my own light breakfast. Let's eat."

They prepared and ate their simple meal and went back, to wonder and speculate and devise new ways of getting some message to the outside world; but nothing came of it. They could do nothing more than scribble notes on pages torn from the diary and throw them from the tops of the windows into the light-well, where they fell harmlessly into the rubbish heap that gathered unnoticed in the corners. The day wore monotonously along and was succeeded by another and another. Then a note was found shoved under the front door in the early dawn.

"Open the little door to the dumbwaiter in the pantry and find supplies."

They obeyed, and found a basket of fruit, cream, vegetables and meat. They wrote an appealing note and placed in the basket and tried to send it down; but they could not manipulate the dumbwaiter. They left the little door open, to know when the basket descended, but it did not go down until some time during the following night. The only reply to their note—if it was a reply—was a second typewritten note, that came under the door late the fourth evening.

"You can be let out any time that Miss Van Deusen will send down her signed and witnessed resignation from the office of mayor. Push it through the crack and the door will be opened for you."

When they read it, Gertrude's face flushed hotly. "So they think to force me out, do they?"

"Don't you resign, Miss Van Deusen," said Mary. "We'll stay here and starve, first. Somebody will find us—some time."

"I've not the slightest intention of resigning," replied the other. "And how often have I asked you to call me Gertrude? We aren't mayor and secretary now—or I'd command you to call me by my given name. We are just two prisoners."

"Then I'll do as you say—if I don't forget—Gertrude," answered Mary.

"I wonder what they are doing down below," said Mary later in the day.

"How many times do you think we've said that this week?" laughed Gertrude. "We've heard the usual street sounds, and an unusual amount of bell-ringing—which may or may not have been on our account."

"At least, we haven't heard them toll the bells for us!" interrupted Mary. "That's something."

"But not a paper, not a line, not a breath from the outside world has reached up—except the basket of provisions," exclaimed Gertrude, ruefully.

"And the demand for your resignation," interrupted Mary again. "Honestly, now, Gertrude, don't you wish at the bottom of your heart, that you had never gone into politics? That you'd let the office of mayor go begging last fall?"

Gertrude's face was a study. For an instant her friend thought she was about to confess that she had made a mistake. Then the old spirit flared up. Gertrude held her head high.

"I would never own it if I did," she said. "When the next election comes around, however—"

She did not finish her remark, but picked up a book and fell to reading.

"This 'Fated to Conquer' isn't a bad story, Mary," she said after a while. "When I read such a book—of love and romance and all that—I wish I were, or had been, of the marrying kind of women. As it is—I'm going to say it in confidence, Mary—I believe, when we get out of this, I'll marry Bailey."

She did not notice her friend's peculiar expression, but talked idly on. "You know he has wanted to marry me several times in the past. To be sure, he hasn't proposed for a couple of years, but he will. A man will always propose to the woman he loves if she gives him half a chance."

"Why didn't you marry him?" asked Mary in an expressionless voice.

"O, I never loved him, or thought I didn't," answered Gertrude. "I didn't fully believe in his love for me, either; that is, he did not love me as I wanted to be loved. We are comrades from childhood, and sort of cousins. He's been as near a brother to me as he could and I've been fond of him in that kind of way."

"Then you don't love him—not really?" asked Mary; and she could not entirely suppress a joyous note in her voice.

"Well, yes," blandly replied Gertrude. "I love Bailey in a way. Not the passionate kind of love one reads of in novels—like this, for instance;" she indicated the book she had been reading. "The heroine goes through all sorts of tribulations for love's sake, and the hero finally renounces everything for her sake; but that is only in books. People don't love in that violent fashion. Mutual esteem and confidence are what I see between the happiest married couples of my acquaintance. Bailey is thoroughly reliable, helpful and honorable. I am tired of standing up to the world alone. It must be a comfort to have a good husband to take care of you."

"It must indeed," replied Mary, inscrutably.

"I know what you mean," replied Allingham. "You don't have to put it in words. But something more definite and aggressive has got to be done than is doing now."

"Right you are," said Armstrong. "The question is—what?"

"The people are getting clamorous, not to say critical," said Allingham, "Why not call another mass-meeting and put it right to them to demand or institute a better organized search for the missing mayor?"

"Good idea," said Bailey. "Let's talk it over with Mason and Turner and Jewett, and see if we can't stir Mann up a bit."

The two men had been lunching together at the club, with a little talk afterwards, while they smoked their cigars in the lazy summer atmosphere of the well-kept garden.

"Well, here it is three o'clock," added Bailey; "and I have an appointment at a quarter-past. So long."

"I must be going, too;" and Allingham followed, walking down street as far as his office. Once there, he hung up his hat, changed his coat for a thinner one, and sat down to his desk, whereupon a pile of letters lay unopened. It was a warm day, and Allingham took his own time to read his correspondence, and jot down on the back of the letters the reply which he wished his secretary to write when she arrived in the morning. Then he rested his head in his hands and his elbows on the desk for a few moments' quiet thought before closing his office for the day. It was a habit he had, when alone, and today the baffling situation with regard to the woman-mayor was making him more worried than ever.

"There's some devilish chicanery going on in high quarters," he told himself, "or this search would be conducted differently. The thing for us to do is to find out just what O. H. M., Esquire, is up to in his little mind. Hullo, what's this?"

A slip of paper had been tossed by the vagrant wind, through the open window onto his desk and lay there, open, under his eyes. Ordinarily, he would have swept the crumpled thing into his waste basket. But the mysterious power which guides us when we do the unexpected thing, stayed his hands, and the half-obliterated note arrested his attention.

confined in top
block. Safe but
come to the corner
Streets and liberate
Gertrude
Mary S

"Good Heavens!" cried Allingham. "They are somewhere in the neighborhood—or were, when this was written. No date, nothing to show where they were or when. Just like a woman. Well, well, here's something to work on at last, thank Heaven." He turned the piece of paper over and over, but there was nothing more to be seen, and he held it up to the light in vain, when he tried to make out what the penciled words had been which had completed the sentence.

"Let's see. This is Thursday. What day was it, when it rained so? Tuesday? No. Sunday? Then this was written before that and has laid out where it was washed by the rain. Then it has dried in the sun and the wind caught it up and brought it here. Blessed wind!"

He walked over to the window and looked down into the street. He had two rooms, one of them a small, back room, opening into a court; but this piece of paper had floated in from the street under his very eyes. He looked across at the big block opposite. She might be right there. A big department store occupied the lower floors—but the upper stories seemed to be tenements for living purposes. What if she should be there, now—at this very moment? Or here, under the same roof with himself?

The thought electrified him and he went out, locking his door behind him. There was an elevator. "Top," the note had said. He took the lift and went to the topmost floor, stealing down the corridors on a voyage of discovery, and feeling like a thief, or a detective. But the rooms were all occupied by tailors or the like, and every door stood hospitably open. Surely he could not reasonably disturb these people and search their premises without a warrant.

He turned and went down again, with the happy inspiration to telephone to the chief of police and to Bailey Armstrong.

"If you could come right here," he said to the former, "I can not only give you some important information, but give you an idea of this locality which you may not possess. For I have a positive clue."

"I'll be with you in fifteen minutes," replied the official, who cared not a rap for the dignity of his position.

To Bailey, Allingham only said: "Come down here at once, I've something definite and important to tell you and to show you. But not a word over the telephone."

In five minutes Bailey came in, breathless. "What is it?" he demanded.

"Read this," and Allingham put the scrap of paper in his hands and related the story of its anchorage on his desk after days of weary wandering. Before the tale was fairly unfolded, the chief of police appeared and it had to be told all over again.

"Now," said Allingham, when he had finished, "what is the first and quickest thing to be done?"

"Organize," answered the chief. "Get a few men together and go through this section of the town thoroughly. Strange we haven't done more right here. We've gone on the theory that they were in the suburbs or in some other town."

"And probably they have been right under our noses, all the time," said Bailey.

"Or over them," returned the chief. "You say you went upstairs."

"Yes. They can't be here," replied Allingham. "Not on the top floor. But there are tenements over opposite."

"We'll take 'em all in, if necessary," said the chief. "What do you say to my coming up here tonight and meeting you two. I'll have a dozen plain-clothes men happen around, and we'll do a little looking around here quietly, between nine and twelve."

"Great," said Armstrong.

"I'll have the office open at eight-thirty," said Allingham.

The chief came alone, however, at a quarter of nine, greeting Bailey and Allingham confidently.

"Where are your men?" asked Allingham, fearful lest the chief's courage had given out.

"You didn't think I'd arouse the suspicion of the whole neighborhood by bringing a whole posse up here with me?" retorted the official. "They're scattered around the square, nosing about quietly. If they can pick up anything it mightn't come amiss. We'd all better saunter around a little, first. We'll go over to Erlich's drug-store and have a soda. A couple of my men will fall in with us there. Later we'll go into the saloon across the way. Before we get out, they'll all be with us, or outside the building—see?"

And they were; but previous to this, several of the men had made errands into the various blocks in that section, but had added no bits of information to their scanty stock. Several quiet families were surprised by the appearance at their doors of strange men on strange errands, but not a clue could be obtained that fastened suspicion on anyone. It seemed pretty clear that there were no kidnaped women in the block opposite, nor in the row of blocks on the side where John Allingham had his office. They went in and out of every block that was not locked upon the street, and invaded every floor, but without avail. Their search lasted until twelve, when the plain-clothes men dropped off quietly and went home.

"Tomorrow we'll investigate the places where we can't get into tonight, and the blocks back of this one. There is an apartment house back of us, isn't there?"

"I don't know," answered Allingham. "I never go over onto Collins Avenue. But—yes, there is a block or two there. We didn't get around there tonight?"

"Tut-tut, one thing at a time," answered the chief. "The note came in at your front window, you said. It wouldn't have been likely to fly over from a street behind you—would it?"

"I'm not so sure of that!" muttered Bailey; and when the chief had gone, he added: "I'm going to sneak around into Collins Avenue before I go home, and sort of get the lay of the land. Come, too?"

"I'll join you in a minute," answered Allingham. "I'm not sure I closed the windows to my back office. Wait for me."

"No; I'll stroll round there and be taking a look," answered Bailey. "You can meet me at a little drug-store there is around the corner." He strolled away and his friend went upstairs to his office. He opened the door with his latch-key, as quietly as possible, meaning just to take a look, and make things secure for the night, but—

There, under the bright electric light, stood—Gertrude Van Deusen.