but 'tis not much you'll get for
your money, for 'tis little enough I know. The man you're talkin' about,
I suppose, is the fat fella with eyes you could hang yer hat on, that
had the back room on the ground floor."

"That's the one."

"Then all I know is, he moved in three days ago, and he moved out two
hours ago. What he did between-times I don't know. But he paid for the
room for a month in advance, so nobody's mournin' his loss."

"Didn't he say why he was going, or where?"

"Divil a word did he say. He was in a hurry, that lad. He had a gang of
three men with him, and they had the place empty in ten minutes. I lent
'em a hand, an' he give me a dollar, and that's the last I saw of him."

A sudden thought struck the watchman. "Where was you all the time?" he
asked with interest.

"In the cellar."

The watchman nodded, understandingly.

"You're too young for that sort of thing, me boy. Now, I'm no teetotaler
meself," he went on argumentatively. "A glass once in a while is all
right, if a man knows whin to stop. But--"

"How about that hat?" interrupted the restive victim of this homily.
"Have you got one handy?"

"I have."

The watchman disappeared into a shadowy corner and returned with a
battered derby.

"An' a fine grand hat it is!" he earnestly assured the new owner, as he
handed it over.

Laurie took the hat and put it on his head, where, being too small for
him, it perched at a rakish angle. He dropped the bank-note into his own
silk hat, and handed them to his companion, who accepted them without
visible emotion. Evidently, brief though his stay in the building had
been, Herbert Ransome Shaw had accustomed its watchman to surprises.
Laurie's last glimpse of the man as he hurried away showed him, with
extreme efficiency and the swift simultaneous use of two well-trained
hands, putting the silk hat on his head and the bill in his pocket.

Laurie rushed through the early East Side streets. He was not often
abroad at this hour, and even in his anxiety it surprised him to
discover how many were abroad so early in the morning. The streets
seemed full of pretty girls, hastening to factories and offices, and of
briskly stepping men and women, representing types that also would
ordinarily catch the attention of the young playwright. But now he had
neither thought nor eyes for them.

His urgent needs were first the assurance that Doris was safe, and next
the privacy of his own rooms, a bath, and a cha