g alone at a table. He will have a red flower
on his coat. You are to say, "A fine opera is 'I Pagliacci.'"
If he answers, "Not without Gennaro," lay the newspaper down
on the table. He will pick it up, leaving his own, the
_Bolletino_. On the third page you will find written the place
where your daughter has been left waiting for you. Go
immediately and get her. But, by the God, if you have so much
as the shadow of the police near Enrico's your daughter will
be sent to you in a box that night. Do not fear to come. We
pledge our word to deal fairly if you deal fairly. This is a
last warning. Lest you shall forget we will show one other
sign of our power to-morrow.

LA MANO NERA.

The end of this letter was decorated with a skull and crossbones, a
rough drawing of a dagger thrust through a bleeding heart, a coffin,
and, under all, a huge black hand. There was no doubt about the type of
letter. It was such as have of late years become increasingly common in
all our large cities.

"You have not showed this to the police, I presume?" asked Kennedy.

"Naturally not."

"Are you going Saturday night?"

"I am afraid to go and afraid to stay away," was the reply, and the
voice of the fifty-thousand-dollars-a-season tenor was as human as that
of a five-dollar-a-week father, for at bottom all men, high or low, are
one.

"'We will not fail as we did Wednesday,'" reread Craig. "What does that
mean?"

Gennaro fumbled in his pocketbook again, and at last drew forth a
typewritten letter bearing the letterhead of the Leslie Laboratories,
Incorporated.

"After I received the first threat," explained Gennaro, "my wife and I
went from our apartments at the hotel to her father's, the banker
Cesare, you know, who lives on Fifth Avenue. I gave the letter to the
Italian Squad of the police. The next morning my father-in-law's butler
noticed something peculiar about the milk. He barely touched some of it
to his tongue, and he has been violently ill ever since. I at once sent
the milk to the laboratory of my friend Doctor Leslie to have it
analyzed. This letter shows what the household escaped."

"My dear Gennaro," read Kennedy. "The milk submitted to us for
examination on the 10th inst. has been carefully analyzed, and
I beg to hand you herewith the result:

"Specific gravity 1.036 at 15 degrees Cent.