e led the way to a taxicab which stood in waiting at the corner.

A quarter of an hour of rather fast riding brought them into a tangle of
streets on the East side. As George noticed the swarming sidewalks and
listened to the noises incident to an over-populated quarter, he could
not forbear, despite the injunction he had received, to express his
surprise at the direction of their search.

"Surely," said he, "the gentleman I have described can have no friends
here." Then, bethinking himself, he added: "But if he has reasons to
fear the law, naturally he would seek to lose himself in a place as
different as possible from his usual haunts."

"Yes, that would be some men's way," was the curt, almost indifferent,
answer he received. Sweetwater was looking this way and that from the
window beside him, and now, leaning out gave some directions to the
driver which altered their course.

When they stopped, which was in a few minutes, he said to George:

"We shall have to walk now for a block or two. I'm anxious to attract
no attention, nor is it desirable for you to do so. If you can manage
to act as if you were accustomed to the place and just leave all the
talking to me, we ought to get along first-rate. Don't be astonished at
anything you see, and trust me for the rest; that's all."

They alighted, and he dismissed the taxicab. Some clock in the
neighbourhood struck the hour of ten. "Good! we shall be in time,"
muttered the detective, and led the way down the street and round a
corner or so, till they came to a block darker than the rest, and much
less noisy.

It had a sinister look, and George, who is brave enough under all
ordinary circumstances, was glad that his companion wore a badge and
carried a whistle. He was also relieved when he caught sight of the
burly form of a policeman in the shadow of one of the doorways. Yet the
houses he saw before him were not so very different from those they had
already passed. His uneasiness could not have sprung from them. They
had even an air of positive respectability, as though inhabited
by industrious workmen. Then, what was it which made the close
companionship of a member of the police so uncommonly welcome? Was it a
certain aspect of solitariness which clung to the block, or was it the
sudden appearance here and there of strangely gliding figures, which no
sooner loomed up against the snowy perspective, than they disappeared
again in some unseen doorway?

"There's a me