en, God willing,
he'll be here waiting for him, and I'll hand him over with two of
everything for the comfort of his sweet little body."

CHAPTER XIV

MALLARD'S

The ladder of crime has its bottom rung in Mallard's. Those who essay
the perilous descent inevitably gravitate, sooner or later, at
Mallard's. It was Saney who was responsible for the statement; and Saney
was a shrewd "investigator," and certainly one of the most experienced
amongst those whose lives were spent in an endeavour to beat the
criminal mind of Eastern Canada.

Mallard's was somewhere on the water front of Quebec. It stood in a
backwater where the busy tide of seafaring traffic passed it by. But it
was sufficiently adjacent to permit its clientele swift and convenient
access to the docks, at once a safety valve and the source of its
popularity.

It was nominally a sailors' boarding-house. Heredity also conferred upon
it the dignity of "hotel." Furthermore, its licence carried with it the
privileges of a saloon. But its claims were by no means exhausted by
these things.

According to Saney's view there was no criminal in the country, and very
few of those who were worth while in the criminal world of the United
States, who, at some time in their careers, had not passed through one
of its many concealed exits. It might, in consequence, be supposed that
Mallard's was a more than usually happy hunting-ground for the
investigator of crime. But here again Saney must be quoted. Mallard's,
he said, was a life study, and, even so, three score and ten years was
no more than sufficient for a very elementary apprenticeship. Further,
he considered that Mallard's was the cemetery of all reputations in
criminal investigation.

Outwardly Mallard's was no different from the other houses which
surrounded it. It was part of a block of buildings which had grown up
and developed in the course of a century or more. Its floors were
several, and its windows were set one over the other without any
pretence other than sheer utility. Its main doorway always stood open,
and gave on to a passage, narrow and dark, and usually deserted. The
passage ran directly into the heart of the building where rose a short
staircase exactly filling the breadth of the passage. At the top of the
eight treads of this staircase was a landing of similar width, out of
which turned two corridors at right angles. Beyond these the landing
terminated in a downward stairway, exactly si