new dress!"

"You better go up and see what's doing, Jess," said Darry. "I'll hold
this woman down here."

Jessie was giggling, although it was from nervousness.

"And I thought you did not want to be considered a burglar?" she said
as she passed hastily in at the door.

"Oh, well, we're in for it now," Darry called after her. "Be as quick
as you can."

Jessie found a door open at the top of the flight. Henrietta was
chattering at top speed somewhere ahead. The rooms were dark, but when
Jessie found the room in which Henrietta was, she likewise found a
girl bound to a chair in which she sat, with a towel tied across her
mouth which muffled her speech.

"Here's Bertha! Here's Bertha!" cried Henrietta eagerly.

Jessie had the girl free and the towel off in half a minute. She saw
then that the prisoner was the girl she and Amy had seen carried away
by Martha Poole and Sadie Bothwell, out of Dogtown Lane.

"Oh, Miss! is this little Hennie? And have you come to take me away?"
gasped Bertha.

"Surely. Are you Bertha Blair?"

"Yes, ma'am. Hennie calls me Bertha Haney. For I lived with her mom
after my mother died. But my name's Blair."

"My father is Robert Norwood, the lawyer," said Jessie swiftly. "He
wants you to testify in court about what you heard when that old man
made his will at Mrs. Poole's house."

"Oh! You mean Mr. Abel Ellison? A gentleman came and asked me about
that once, and then Mrs. Poole said I'd got to keep my mouth shut
about it or she'd put me away somewhere so that I'd never get away."

"So I ran away from her," said Bertha, "and tried to go to Dogtown and
see Hennie and the Foleys. Why! wasn't you one of the girls, Miss,
that saw Mrs. Poole putting me into that car?"

"Yes," sighed Jessie. "I saw it, but couldn't stop it."

"Well, they brought me right out here, and I've been here ever since.
When Mrs. Poole isn't here that old woman comes and keeps me from
running away."

"But once," Jessie suggested, "you had a chance to try to send out a
cry for help?"

"There's a radio here. They used it one night. Then I tried to call
for help over it. But they heard me and stopped it at once."

"Just the same, that attempt of yours is what has brought us here
to-day. I will tell you all about it later. Come, Bertha! We will get
you away from here before Mrs. Poole comes. And we must take you to
the city to see my father at once."

As they left the tower and the ugly old woman, they heard t