ay that for
a package of this size and weight the charges would be about forty cents.
But that you can leave her to pay. She will be quite willing to do so, I
am sure."

"Of course, of course--I didn't think of that. She'll pay for it, of
course she'll pay for it." And he continued to fuss and chat, with that
curious mixture of native shrewdness and senile interest in little things
which he thought most likely to impress the woman attending him, and trap
her into giving him the complete address.

But she was too wary, or too much preoccupied with her own affairs, to
let the cat any farther out of the bag, and he had to be content with her
promise, that the package should be given to the expressman as early as
possible the next morning.

The feebleness he showed while leaving the shop was in marked contrast,
however, to the vigor with which he took down the telephone-receiver in
the booth of the neighboring drug-store. But she was not there to see;
nor anyone else who had the least interest in his movements. He could,
therefore, give all the emphasis he desired to the demand he made upon
Headquarters for a close watch to be set on the adjoining dry-goods shop,
for the purpose of intercepting and obtaining the address of a certain
package, on the point of being expressed from there to some place up the
river.

Then he went home; for by now he was fully as tired as his years
demanded.

XXI

PERPLEXED

"Elvira Brown."

"Elvira Brown? That the name on the package?"

"Yes."

"And the address?"

The name of a small town in the Catskills was given him.

"Thank you. Very good work." And Mr. Gryce hung up the receiver. Then he
stood thinking.

"Elvira Brown! A very fair alias--that is, the _Brown_ end. But what am I
to think of _Elvira_? And what am I to think of the _Brown_, now that I
remember that the woman who has chosen to hide her identity under another
name is a Frenchwoman. Something queer! Let me see if I can call up the
station-master at the place she's gone."

A long-distance connection proving practicable, he found himself after a
little while in communication with the man he wanted.

"I'm Gryce, of the New York police. A woman in whom we're greatly
interested has just entered your town under the name of Elvira Brown."

_"Elvira Brown!"_

Mr. Gryce was startled at the tone in which this was repeated, even
making due allowance for the medium through which it came.

"Yes. What's there s