she did not come. At last, driven by
impatience, he ventured to open the door he had previously hesitated to
touch and took a quick look in. Girls, girls! nothing but girls! No
Madame Duclos anywhere.

Something must have happened to interrupt her escape. Either she had been
caught in the attempt by the superintendent or by some one else of equal
authority. This, if bad for her, was also bad for him, as a quiet hold-up
in the manner he had planned was certainly better than the public one
which must now follow.

Sorry for her and sorry for himself, Mr. Gryce returned to the office
just as the superintendent entered from the opposite door. He thought the
latter looked a little queer, and in an instant he learned why.

"Was the woman you wanted a staid, elderly person, apparently a
foreigner?"

"Yes--of French birth, I am told."

"Well, I guess you were all right in distrusting her. She's gone--took a
notion that night work didn't agree with her and left without so much as
a 'By your leave!' She must have smelt you out in some uncanny way. Too
bad! She bade fair to be just the woman we wanted for a very nice part of
the work."

"Do you mean she's really out of the building--that you didn't stop
her----"

"I didn't know what she was up to, till she was gone. I----"

"But how did she get out? She didn't go by the employees' door for I
stood there on the watch. I had seen her receive a note----"

"A note? How? Who gave it to her?"

"Some girl."

"And you saw this? How could you? Been through the work-rooms?"

"No. I saw her from this window, as I was looking diagonally across the
court. She was in one of the opposite rooms over there----"

The superintendent broke into a hearty laugh.

"Fooled!" he cried. "You police detectives are a smart crowd, but our old
factory with its string of useless windows has led you astray for once.
You weren't looking into any one of the rooms over there. You were
looking at a reflection in that useless old window behind which the
elevator runs. That happens when the elevator running on that side is
down. I've seen it often and laughed in my sleeve at the chance it gives
me to observe on the sly how things are going on at certain benches. Many
a girl has got her discharge--But no matter about that. Come here.

"The room you think you see over there--you will notice that nobody is at
work in it now--is on this side of the building, and the woman you have
in chase escaped by the