it's an even break. You're all
in, Tommy! The Tracer is on your trail!"

In the beginning of a flippant retort Kerns experienced a curious
sensation of hesitation. Something in Gatewood's earnestness, in his
jeering assurance and delighted certainty, made him, for one moment,
feel doubtful, even uncomfortable.

"What nonsense you talk," he said, recovering his equanimity. "Nothing
on earth can prevent me driving to 38 East Eighty-third Street, getting
my luggage, and taking the Boston express. Your Tracer doesn't intend to
stop my hansom and drag me into a cave, does he? You haven't put
knock-outs into that Burgundy, have you? Then what in the dickens are
you laughing at?"

But Gatewood, on the sidewalk under the lamplight, was still laughing as
Kerns drove away, for he had recognized in the cab driver a man he had
seen in Mr. Kern's office, and he knew that the Tracer of Lost Persons
had Kerns already well in hand.

The hansom drove on through the summer darkness between rows of electric
globes drooping like huge white moon flowers from their foliated bronze
stalks, on up the splendid avenue, past the great brilliantly
illuminated hotels, past the white cathedral, past clubs and churches
and the palaces of the wealthy; on, on along the park wall edged by its
double rows of elms under which shadowy forms moved--lovers strolling in
couples.

"Pooh," sniffed Kerns, "the whole world has gone love mad, and I'm the
only sane man left."

But he leaned back in his cab and fell a-thinking of a thin girl with
red hair and great gray eyes--a thin, frail creature, scarcely more than
a child, who had held him for a week in a strange sorcery only to
release him with a frightened smile, leaving her indelible impression
upon his life forever.

And, thinking, he looked up, realizing that the cab had stopped in East
Eighty-third Street before one of a line of brownstone houses, all
externally alike.

Then he leaned out and saw that the house number was thirty-eight. That
was the number of the Lees' house; he descended, bade the cabman await
him, and, producing his latch key, started up the steps, whistling
gayly.

But he didn't require his key, for, as he reached the front door, he
found, to his surprise and concern, that it swung partly open--just a
mere crack.

"The mischief!" he muttered; "could I have failed to close it? Could
anybody have seen it and crept in?"

He entered the hallway hastily and pressed the electri