pened the door, murmured a
perfunctory "Good night" and let himself in. But as he mounted to his
chambers, some of the moment's exultation that had seized him at sight
of the man, revived.

"He has come back--he is here--in London. I surely can lay hands on
him--I must! I will!"

* * * * *

CHAPTER VIII

A CHANGE OF FRONT

HE found the task no easy one, however, although he went at it with his
characteristic vigor and energy. Few men knew the seamy side of London
better than John Steele: its darksome streets and foul alleys, its
hovels and various habitations. And this knowledge he utilized to the
best advantage, always to find that his efforts came to naught. The
snares he set before possible hiding-places proved abortive; the
artifices he employed to uncover the quarry in maze or labyrinth were
fruitless. The man had appeared like a vision from the past, and
vanished. Whither? Out of the country, once more? Over the seas? Had he
taken quick alarm at Steele's words, and effected a hasty retreat from
the scenes of his graceless and nefarious career?

Reluctantly John Steele found himself forced to entertain the
possibility of this being so; otherwise the facilities at his command
were such that he should most likely, ere this, have been able to attain
his end, find what he sought. Soberly attired, he attracted no very
marked attention in the slums,--breeding spots of the criminal classes;
the denizens knew John Steele; he had been there oft before.

He had, on occasion, assisted some of them with stern good advice or
more substantial services. He was acquainted with these men and women;
had, perhaps, a larger charity for them than most people find it
expedient to cherish. His glance had always seemed to read them through
and through, with uncompromising realization of their infirmities,
weaknesses of the flesh and inherited moral imperfections. His very
fearlessness had ever commended him to that lower world; it did now,
enabling him the better to cast about in divers directions.

To hear nothing, to learn nothing, at least, very little! One man had
seen the object of Steele's solicitude and to this person, a weazened
little "undesirable," the red-headed giant had confided that London was
pretty hot and he thought of decamping from it.

"'Arter all this time that's gone by,' he says to me, bitter-like, 'to
think a man can't come back to 'is native 'ome without being spie