nding with his back to the door. The door to the right
opened, and a policeman appeared.

"Arrest this woman," said Jack. "She's one of them."

"I suppose I must yield," said Peg, sulkily; "but you shan't be a gainer
by it," she continued, addressing Jack.

"Where is Ida?" asked our hero, anxiously.

"She is safe," said Peg, sententiously.

"You won't tell me where she is?"

"No; why should I? I suppose I am indebted to you for this arrest. She
shall be kept out of your way as long as I have power to do so."

"Then I shall find her," said Jack. "She is somewhere in the city, and
I'll find her sooner or later."

Peg was not one to betray her feelings, but this arrest was a great
disappointment to her. It interfered with a plan she had of making a
large sum out of Ida. To understand what this was, we must go back a day
or two, and introduce a new character.

CHAPTER XXXI

MR. JOHN SOMERVILLE

Jack's appearance on the scene had set Mrs. Hardwick to thinking. This
was the substance of her reflections: Ida, whom she had kidnaped for
certain reasons of her own, was likely to prove an incumbrance rather
than a source of profit. The child, her suspicions awakened in regard to
the character of the money she had been employed to pass off, was no
longer available for that purpose.

Under these circumstances Peg bethought herself of the ultimate object
which she had proposed to herself in kidnaping Ida--that of extorting
money from a man who has not hitherto figured in our story.

John Somerville occupied a suite of apartments in a handsome lodging
house in Walnut Street. A man wanting yet several years of forty, he
looked many years older than that age. Late hours and dissipated habits,
though kept within respectable limits, left their traces on his face. At
twenty-one he inherited a considerable fortune, which, combined with
some professional income--for he was a lawyer, and not without
ability--was quite sufficient to support him handsomely, and leave a
considerable surplus every year. But latterly he had contracted a
passion for gaming, and, shrewd though he might be naturally, he could
hardly be expected to prove a match for the wily _habitues_ of the
gaming table, who had marked him for their prey.

The evening before his introduction to the reader he had passed till a
late hour at a fashionable gaming house, where he had lost heavily.

His reflections on waking were not the most pleasant. For the fi