k
it out in detail to-night. Where can I find you to-morrow?"

"Come to me at the opera-house in the afternoon, or if you want me
sooner at Mr. Cesare's residence. Good night, and a thousand thanks
to you, Professor Kennedy, and to you, also, Mr. Jameson. I trust you
absolutely because Luigi trusts you."

We sat in the little dining-room until we heard the door of the
limousine bang shut and the car shoot off with the rattle of the
changing gears.

"One more question, Luigi," said Craig as the door opened again. "I
have never been on that block in Mulberry Street where this Albano's
is. Do you happen to know any of the shopkeepers on it or near it?"

"I have a cousin who has a drug-store on the corner below Albano's, on
the same side of the street."

"Good! Do you think he would let me use his store for a few minutes
Saturday night--of course without any risk to himself?"

"I think I could arrange it."

"Very well. Then to-morrow, say at nine in the morning, I will stop
here, and we will all go over to see him. Good night, Luigi, and many
thanks for thinking of me in connection with this case. I've enjoyed
Signor Gennaro's singing often enough at the opera to want to render
him this service, and I'm only too glad to be able to be of service to
all honest Italians; that is, if I succeed in carrying out a plan I
have in mind."

A little before nine the following day Kennedy and I dropped into
Luigi's again. Kennedy was carrying a suitcase which he had taken over
from his laboratory to our rooms the night before. Luigi was waiting
for us, and without losing a minute we sallied forth.

By means of the tortuous twists of streets in old Greenwich village we
came out at last on Bleecker Street and began walking east amid the
hurly-burly of races of lower New York. We had not quite reached
Mulberry Street when our attention was attracted by a large crowd on
one of the busy corners, held back by a cordon of police who were
endeavoring to keep the people moving with that burly good nature
which the six-foot Irish policeman displays toward the five-foot
burden-bearers of southern and eastern Europe who throng New York.

Apparently, we saw, as we edged up into the front of the crowd, here
was a building whose whole front had literally been torn off and
wrecked. The thick plate-glass of the windows was smashed to a mass
of greenish splinters on the sidewalk, while the windows of the upper
floors and for several houses d