s desk, whereupon a pile of letters lay
unopened. It was a warm day, and Allingham took his own time to read his
correspondence, and jot down on the back of the letters the reply which
he wished his secretary to write when she arrived in the morning. Then
he rested his head in his hands and his elbows on the desk for a few
moments' quiet thought before closing his office for the day. It was a
habit he had, when alone, and today the baffling situation with regard
to the woman-mayor was making him more worried than ever.

"There's some devilish chicanery going on in high quarters," he told
himself, "or this search would be conducted differently. The thing for
us to do is to find out just what O. H. M., Esquire, is up to in his
little mind. Hullo, what's this?"

A slip of paper had been tossed by the vagrant wind, through the open
window onto his desk and lay there, open, under his eyes. Ordinarily, he
would have swept the crumpled thing into his waste basket. But the
mysterious power which guides us when we do the unexpected thing, stayed
his hands, and the half-obliterated note arrested his attention.

confined in top
block. Safe but
come to the corner
Streets and liberate
Gertrude
Mary S

"Good Heavens!" cried Allingham. "They are somewhere in the
neighborhood--or were, when this was written. No date, nothing to show
where they were or when. Just like a woman. Well, well, here's
something to work on at last, thank Heaven." He turned the piece of
paper over and over, but there was nothing more to be seen, and he held
it up to the light in vain, when he tried to make out what the penciled
words had been which had completed the sentence.

"Let's see. This is Thursday. What day was it, when it rained so?
Tuesday? No. Sunday? Then this was written before that and has laid out
where it was washed by the rain. Then it has dried in the sun and the
wind caught it up and brought it here. Blessed wind!"

He walked over to the window and looked down into the street. He had two
rooms, one of them a small, back room, opening into a court; but this
piece of paper had floated in from the street under his very eyes. He
looked across at the big block opposite. She might be right there. A big
department store occupied the lower floors--but the upper stories
seemed to be tenements for living purposes. What if she should be there,
now--at this very moment? Or here, under the same roof