r members of both the Camorra in Naples and the Mafia in
Sicily, as well as the Black Hand gangs in New York, Chicago, and other
cities. Well, Cesare, as you know, is Gennaro's father-in-law.

"While I was in Naples looking up the record of a certain criminal I
heard of a peculiar murder committed some years ago. There was an honest
old music master who apparently lived the quietest and most harmless
of lives. But it became known that he was supported by Cesare and had
received handsome presents of money from him. The old man was, as
you may have guessed, the first music teacher of Gennaro, the man who
discovered him. One might have been at a loss to see how he could have
an enemy, but there was one who coveted his small fortune. One day he
was stabbed and robbed. His murderer ran out into the street, crying
out that the poor man had been killed. Naturally a crowd rushed up in
a moment, for it was in the middle of the day. Before the injured man
could make it understood who had struck him the assassin was down the
street and lost in the maze of old Naples where he well knew the
houses of his friends who would hide him. The man who is known to have
committed that crime--Francesco Paoli--escaped to New York. We are
looking for him to-day. He is a clever man, far above the average--son
of a doctor in a town a few miles from Naples, went to the university,
was expelled for some mad prank--in short, he was the black sheep of the
family. Of course over here he is too high-born to work with his
hands on a railroad or in a trench, and not educated enough to work
at anything else. So he has been preying on his more industrious
countrymen--a typical case of a man living by his wits with no visible
means of support.

"Now I don't mind telling you in strict confidence," continued the
lieutenant, "that it's my theory that old Cesare has seen Paoli here,
knew he was wanted for that murder of the old music master, and gave me
the tip to look up his record. At any rate Paoli disappeared right after
I returned from Italy, and we haven't been able to locate him since.
He must have found out in some way that the tip to look him up had been
given by the White Hand. He had been a Camorrista, in Italy, and had
many ways of getting information here in America."

He paused, and balanced a piece of cardboard in his hand.

"It is my theory of this case that if we could locate this Paoli we
could solve the kidnapping of little Adelina Gennaro