l for them to appear was to be the
extinguishing of the lights behind the coloured bottles in the
druggist's window. A taxicab was to be kept waiting at headquarters at
the same time with three other good men ready to start for a given
address the moment the alarm was given over the telephone.

We found Gennaro awaiting us with the greatest anxiety at the opera
house. The bomb at Cesare's had been the last straw. Gennaro had already
drawn from his bank ten crisp one-thousand-dollar bills, and already he
had a copy of _Il Progresso_ in which he had hidden the money between
the sheets.

"Mr. Kennedy," he said, "I am going to meet them to-night. They may kill
me. See, I have provided myself with a pistol--I shall fight, too, if
necessary for my little Adelina. But if it is only money they want, they
shall have it."

"One thing I want to say," began Kennedy.

"No, no, no!" cried the tenor. "I will go--you shall not stop me."

"I don't wish to stop you," Craig reassured him. "But one thing--do
exactly as I tell you, and I swear not a hair of the child's head will
be injured and we will get the blackmailers, too."

"How?" eagerly asked Gennaro. "What do you want me to do?"

"All I want you to do is to go to Albano's at the appointed time. Sit
down in the back room. Get into conversation with them, and, above all,
Signor, as soon as you get the copy of the _Bolletino_ turn to the third
page, pretend not to be able to read the address. Ask the man to read
it. Then repeat it after him. Pretend to be overjoyed. Offer to set up
wine for the whole crowd. Just a few minutes, that is all I ask, and I
will guarantee that you will be the happiest man in New York to-morrow."

Gennaro's eyes filled with tears as he grasped Kennedy's hand. "That is
better than having the whole police force back of me," he said. "I shall
never forget, never forget."

As we went out Kennedy remarked: "You can't blame them for keeping their
troubles to themselves. Here we send a police officer over to Italy to
look up the records of some of the worst suspects. He loses his life.
Another takes his place. Then after he gets back he is set to work on
the mere clerical routine of translating them. One of his associates is
reduced in rank. And so what does it all come to? Hundreds of records
have become useless because the three years within which the criminals
could be deported have elapsed with nothing done. Intelligent, isn't it?
I believe it has bee