mankind who clasp
their hands when they praise, stood thus beside him until he took
his leave. The woman in the red waist summoned an attendant to show
him back down the long corridor.

At the grated door within the entrance St. George found the warden
in stormy conference with a pale blond youth in spectacles.

"Impossible," the warden was saying bluntly, "I know you. I know
your voice. You called me up this morning from the _New York
Sentinel_ office, and I told you then--"

"But, my dear sir," expostulated the pale blond youth, waving a
music roll, "I do assure you--"

"What he says is quite true, Warden," St. George interposed
courteously, "I will vouch for him. I have just been singing for the
Readers' Guild myself."

The warden dropped back with a grudging apology and brows of tardy
suspicion, and the old man blinked his buckle eyes.

"Gentlemen," said St. George, "good morning."

Outside the door, with its panels decorated in positive
prohibitions, he eagerly unfolded the precious paper. It bore a
single name and address: Tabnit, 19 McDougle Street, New York.

CHAPTER III

ST. GEORGE AND THE LADY

St. George lunched leisurely at his hotel. Upon his return from
Westchester he had gone directly to McDougle Street to be assured
that there was a house numbered 19. Without difficulty he had found
the place; it was in the row of old iron-balconied apartment houses
a few blocks south of Washington Square, and No. 19 differed in no
way from its neighbours even to the noisy children, without toys,
tumbling about the sunken steps and dark basement door. St. George
contented himself with walking past the house, for the mere
assurance that the place existed dictated his next step.

This was to write a note to Mrs. Medora Hastings, Miss Holland's
aunt. The note set forth that for reasons which he would, if he
might, explain later, he was interested in the woman who had
recently made an attempt upon her niece's life; that he had seen the
woman and had obtained an address which he was confident would lead
to further information about her. This address, he added, he
preferred not to disclose to the police, but to Mrs. Hastings or
Miss Holland herself, and he begged leave to call upon them if
possible that day. He despatched the note by Rollo, whom he
instructed to deliver it, not at the desk, but at the door of Mrs.
Hastings' apartment, and to wait for an answer. He watched with
pleasure Rollo's soft depa