e nature. The ordinary vehicle in use among
the House People was a springless cart, whose wheels were simply
sections of an elm-tree butt, and these primitive constructions creaked
horribly upon their axles, unless liberally greased, and left a track
six inches or more in width. It is not surprising, then, that Constans
was momentarily puzzled by the narrow, delicately lined marks that
betokened the passage of a real carriage. For while Doom contained many
examples of the ancient coach-builder's skill, they were not in general
use. The old Dom Gillian occasionally employed a carriage in taking the
air--at least, so Ulick had told him, but Constans had never seen it.
For all that the check was but a momentary one; his wits had been
sharpened by use, and now they helped him to the truth. He ran on at top
speed.

A course of a mile or more and he was entering a poorer part of the city
a little north of east and close to the shore of the Lesser river. It
was a region of tenement dwellings, a huddle of nondescript buildings,
flanked by huge factories and sprawling coal and lumber yards--an
unpromising region, surely, in which to look for Master Quinton Edge's
particular retreat. And yet it would have marked the subtlety of the man
to have set his secret here, where it would have been at once so easily
seen and overlooked. Every labyrinth has its clew, but the fugitive
walks safely in a crowd.

The wheel-tracks turned sharply to the right, going straight down a side
street to the river-front. On the left were the ruins of one of the
ancient plants for the manufacture of illuminating gas. The yard was
but a wilderness of rusty iron tanks and fallen bricks; surely there
was nothing here to interest.

On the right, however, there was an enclosed area that comprised the
greater part of the block. It was separated from the highway by a brick
wall ten feet in height, and the general level of the ground was
considerably higher than that of the street. Constans could see trees
growing and the ruins of a pergola and trellises for fruit; it actually
looked like a garden, and through the naked branches of the trees there
gleamed the white stuccoed walls of a dwelling-house, with a flat roof,
surmounted by a cupola. The estate, for it possessed certain pretensions
to that title, looked as though it had been transported from some more
favored region and set down all in a piece among these hideous iron
tanks and dingy, cliff-like factor