the two women
and I will be off for Breslau. Leave me a free hand, and I'll get
your murderer and the money. But remember, one single imprudence
loses both man and money; you, your vengeance; me, my reward. And
I depend on this windfall to marry!"

"So do I, Dennis," sadly smiled Witherspoon. "Go in; I'll do your
bidding. Count on the extradition papers and the money."

In ten minutes the armorer's room was dark. "Not a bad evening's
work," said the notary, as he pocketed a hundred-dollar bill,
"and another one of those 'exquisitely executed engravings' for
to-morrow!"

Long before Alice Worthington had lifted her stately head from her
pillow the next morning, the astonished Dennis McNerney was rubbing
his eyes before the location of the Valkyrie Saloon. He had stolen
over to Brooklyn with the "early birds."

The streets were as yet unpeopled when he drew the drowsy officer
on the beat into the side room of the saloon where once Mr. August
Meyer presided in the evening.

The two uniformed giants smacked their lips over the morning
Manhattan cocktail.

"Now, that's what I call a cocktail," said Officer Hogan, as he
ordered up (on a complimentary basis) the Havanas. "This saloon
used to be a German sort of headquarters. But the new fellows are
our own people, the right sort. They knew it's an Irish neighborhood.
So they pulled down the sign 'Valkyrie,' and put up 'The Shamrock,'
drove out their Dutch kellners and put in good Irish barkeepers."

"What's become of August Meyer, who used to have an interest here?"
carelessly said McNerney, affecting a familiarity with old history.

"Meyer ran a hidden dead-fall and gambling house next door, at No.
192 Layte Street," said Hogan, biting off his cigar. "That was
before I came on the beat. He got to plunging on the races, betting
against his own games, and the poker crowd here cleaned him up at
last. So there's the Hibernia Social Club, the Democratic Ward
Committee, and a lot of roomers in there. It's a new deal now,
all around.

"The whole house has been ripped up and there's a China wash-house
in the basement of that old mansion."

"Meyer?" interrogated McNerney, as he ordered the second round.

"Cleared out for Europe, so they say," carelessly said Hogan. "I
saw him driving in a carriage a few days before he sold out, with
a staving looking woman. He may have married a good thing, and
skipped the town. He was a shifty sort of a devil; but he ran a
s