.
You can depend on us. Are you armed?"

Evan shook his head.

"As you are to be the first to enter the house it would be as well.
Take this."

"This" was a neat and businesslike automatic. George Deaves shuddered
at the sight of it.

The Inspector compared watches with Evan and departed in his automobile
to make his arrangements.

CHAPTER XIV

NUMBER 11 VAN DORN STREET

Evan borrowed a newspaper at the bank and cut from it five pieces of
the size and shape of bills. These he enclosed in an envelope and gave
it to George Deaves. The latter was already longing to turn back from
this expedition, but Evan gave him no opening to do so.

It was about half-past ten when they left the bank. In case they
should be under observation Evan had to find some plausible reason for
delay. They taxied back to the Deaves house as if they had forgotten
something, and then down-town again. They dismissed their cab in
MacDougall street, and proceeded on foot according to instructions.

Few people in New York could lead you to Van Dorn street, but Evan
happened to have marked it during his wanderings with Simeon Deaves.
It is only three blocks long, from MacDougall street to the river; one
of the forgotten streets of the real Greenwich Village, not the
spurious. Down the first block extends a double row of little old red
brick dwellings; number eleven was presumably one of these. The
remaining blocks are given up to great storehouses.

It was not any too easy to time their arrival to a second without
rousing the suspicions of anyone who might be watching them. Evan
dared not consult his watch too often. He made careful calculations of
the time they took to walk a block. As it was he arrived in sight of
the corner some seconds too soon. He used up this time by asking the
way of an Italian grocer who had no English.

It was ten seconds to eleven when Evan guided the shaking George Deaves
into Van Dorn street, and they mounted the steps of number eleven
precisely on the hour. A great bell was tolling as Evan pulled the
old-fashioned knob. In the depths of the house a bell jangled. Evan's
heart was beating hard in his throat; George Deaves was as livid as a
corpse--nothing strange in that, though, if anybody was watching.

The little brick house with its beautiful old doorway and wrought iron
railings was the very epitome of respectability--they had left the
swarming Italian quarter around the corner. With