rning, but did not succeed
in getting him until nearly two o'clock. Then he answered that he did
not know Mrs. Orme's address, having always secured her services
through the Sisters' Hospital.

Josie tried the Sisters' Hospital and learned that Mrs. Orme lived in
an apartment at 524 Morgan Avenue. She took a taxicab and drove there,
determining to obtain an interview with the woman by posing as a nurse
who desired assistance in securing employment. But disappointment
confronted her. Mrs. Orme had moved from the apartment ten days ago and
her present address was unknown.

"She has taken considerable pains to cover her traces," said Josie to
Mary Louise, when she returned from her futile trip.

"I hope you're not discouraged, dear," returned Mary Louise anxiously.
"The local detectives have done nothing at all, so you are our only
hope, Josie."

The embryo detective smiled sweetly.

"I'm not here on a pleasure trip," she said, "although I enjoy travel
and good hotel fodder as well as anyone. This is business, but so far
I'm just feeling my way and getting a start. You can't open a mystery
as you do a book, Mary Louise; it has to be pried open. The very fact
that this Mrs. Orme has so carefully concealed her hiding-place is
assurance that she's the guilty party who abducted Alora. Being
positive of that, it only remains to find her--not an impossibility, by
any means--and then we shall have no difficulty in liberating her
prisoner."

"But to find her; can you do that, Josie?"

"Certainly, with a little help from the police, which they will gladly
furnish. They know I'm Daddy's daughter, for I have already introduced
myself to them, and while they may be slow to take the initiative they
are always quite willing to aid in an affair of this sort. Now, it
stands to reason, Mary Louise, that the nurse didn't use the streets to
promenade with. Alora. That would have been dangerous to her plans.
There are so few people abroad in Chicago at six o'clock in the morning
that those who met the two would have noted and remembered them. For
the same reason Mrs. Orme did not take a street car, or the elevated.
Therefore, she took a cab, and the cabman who drove them will know Mrs.
Orme's address."

"But who was the cabman?" asked Mary Louise.

"That," said Josie, "is to be my next discovery."

CHAPTER XIX
DECOYED

The excitement of being once more in a big city rendered Alora Jones
wakeful on that eventful Tuesday mor