ll bear marks
of the fight. Each man we take we will question separately; one or other
of them is pretty safe to be ready to say where your friend was taken to
if I promise him that he shan't be prosecuted."

Every house in the district was searched from top to bottom. Six
men; with cut and bruised faces, were found shamming sleep, and were
separately questioned closely; all declared that they knew nothing
whatever of anyone being carried there.

"It is of no use your denying your share in the affair," the Lieutenant
said. "Your comrades have confessed that there were twenty-five of you
hired to carry out this, and that you received a hundred francs each.
Now, if this gentleman is not found, it will be a hanging matter for
some of you, and you had better tell all you know. If you will tell us
where he is, I will promise that you shan't be included in the list of
those who will be prosecuted."

The reply, although put in different words, was identical with that of
the prisoners.

"We had nothing to do with carrying him off; we were hired only to
knock the men down who were pointed out to us; not a word was said about
carrying them off. He may have been carried off, that we cannot say, but
he has certainly not been brought here, and none of us had anything to
do with it."

Morning was breaking before the search was concluded. The detectives,
accustomed as they were to visit the worst slums of London, were
horrified at the crowding, the squalor, and the misery of the places
they entered.

"My opinion. Mr. Chetwynd," Gibbons growled, "is that the best thing to
do would be to put a score of soldiers at the end of all these lanes,
and then to burn the whole place down, and make a clean sweep of it. I
never saw such a villainous looking crew in all my life. I have been
in hopes all along that some of them would resist; it would have been a
real pleasure to have let fly at them."

"They are a villainous set of wretches, Gibbons, but they may not be all
criminals."

"Well; I don't know, sir; but I know that if I were on a jury, and any
of the lot were in the dock, I should not want to hear any evidence
against them; their faces are enough to hang them."

At last the search was over, and they were glad indeed when they emerged
from the lanes and breathed the pure air outside, for all the Englishmen
felt sick at the poisonous air of the dens they had entered. The
prisoners, as they were taken, had been sent off to the