the meantime--or, rather, during the time that has already been
mentioned--the detective and his assistants had not been idle. There had
not been a day or a night when he and Chick and Patsy and Ten-Ichi had
not been engaged in searching some part of the city for Black Madge, or
for some trace of her.

They had visited the dens in the lower part of the city; they had
questioned the policemen and the stool pigeons of the detective bureau,
and they had even gone so far as to communicate directly with crooks who
were known to them for information concerning the woman.

But none had been forthcoming. Black Madge was keeping herself as
thoroughly under cover as if she were still in the prison in that other
State from which she had escaped.

But after this occurrence of Sunday night, when the bullet was shot
through the window at the detective, he determined to make no more
half-hearted efforts to find Madge, but to set out at once that very
night in search of her; and accordingly he put away his papers and
called Chick into the room with him.

"Chick," he said, "do you happen to know anything about Mike Grinnel's
place?"

"I only know," said Chick, "that he is said to keep one of the worst
dives in the city, and that it is located somewhere in Rivington Street.
I am not sure about it, because I have never had occasion to go there.
The only thing I do know about it is that it is said to be a great
Sunday night resort for thieves and crooks of all classes."

"Right," said Nick. "That coincides with what I have heard. I have never
been there, either, Chick but I am going there to-night--now. The
question is, do you want to go with me?"

"I sure do," replied Chick.

CHAPTER XXI.

CURLY JOHN, THE BANK THIEF.

Mike Grinnel's place in Rivington Street was at that time one of those
monstrosities which were permitted to exist within the limits of New
York City nobody knows how. During the day and the early part of the
evening it was to all appearances merely an ordinary saloon, and if a
stranger were passing it he would regard it as a likely place to enter
if he required refreshment.

But when the hours deepened into the night, the place gradually assumed
more and more the aspect which might be labeled dangerous. Men and women
drifted in together and talked in low tones at tables arranged along the
side of the room, and as the time continued toward midnight, and passed
it, the air of respectability gradually di