"I have a son," continued the old man, "and my son has a wife. We live a
little piece down the street. My son's wife is fussy; she doesn't like
any kind of public notice. And so, when I wanted to go to the police
with what I've seen, she wouldn't hear of it. She said we might even
have our names in the papers."

"Women are that way sometimes," said Scanlon. "I've noticed it more than
once."

"Fools, I call them," declared the old resident. "But when they have
control of things, you've got to let them have their way." He stood with
his face turned toward No. 620 for a few moments and then continued:
"Yes, sir, queer things go on in that house. People that's sick don't
act the way she does."

"Who does?" asked Bat.

"Why, that girl over there! Every day stealing away out at the back door
with a veil over her face and some one's else clothes on, and taking a
taxicab for I don't know where."

"You saw that, did you?" asked Bat, eagerly.

"Yes, sir, I saw it; and I've seen it every day since the police were
taken off guard. Sick!" again came the cackling old laugh. "Sick! Why,
she ain't no more sick than I am."

CHAPTER XXI

WHAT THE BURGLAR SAID AT GAFFNEY'S

What the old resident of Stanwick said to Bat Scanlon aroused that
gentleman to a high pitch, and he began asking eager questions.

"I don't know where she goes," said the man. "I wish I did. But I've
seen her two or three times, and she was just as spry as you'd want
anybody to be. Sick! Sick nothing!"

Bat's questions continued for some time, but this was the only fact the
old man had; and so the big athlete bade him good-night.

Scanlon thought it best not to go to the railroad station, for there he
would be almost certain to encounter the Swiss and Big Slim. There was
an electric road which cut through the far end of the suburb, and he
concluded it were safer to use this into the city, even though it did
take much more time.

"But everything's done for the night," said he. "I've got a few more
things to think about, too. So what difference does a half hour or so
make?"

Bat got to bed at his hotel at about midnight; but it was several hours
later before he got to sleep, for the events of the night tossed and
mingled in his mind in a most distracting fashion. Consequently, next
day, he arose late, and when he reached the gymnasium it was almost
noon. A note lay upon his desk in the office written in a well-known
hand.

"I have taken