papers;
in other words, that the police, attracted to the spot by the sound of
revolver shots, had found Danglar handcuffed to the fire escape of a
well-known thieves' resort in an all too well-known and questionable
locality.

A smile came spontaneously. It was quite true. That was where the
Adventurer had left Danglar--handcuffed to the fire escape! The smile
vanished. The humor of the situation was not long-lived; it ended there.
Danglar was as cunning as the proverbial fox; and Danglar, at that
moment, in desperate need of explaining his predicament in some
plausible way to the police, had, as the expression went, run true to
form. Danglar's story, as reported by the papers, even rose above his
own high-water mark of vicious cunning, because it played upon a chord
that appealed instantly to the police; and it rang true, not only
because what the police could find out about him made it likely,
but also because it contained a modicum of truth in itself; and,
furthermore, Danglar had scored on still another count in that his story
must stimulate the police into renewed activities as his unsuspecting
allies in the one thing, the one aim and object that, at that moment,
must obsess him above all others--the discovery of herself, the White
Moll.

It was ingeniously simple, Danglar's smooth and oily lie! He had been
walking along the street, he had stated, when he saw a woman, as she
passed under a street lamp, who he thought resembled the White Moll.
To make sure, he followed her--at a safe distance, as he believed. She
entered the tenement. He hesitated. He knew the reputation of the
place, which bore out his first impression that the woman was the one
he thought she was; but he did not want to make a fool of himself by
calling in the police until he was positive of her identity, so he
finally followed her inside, and heard her go upstairs, and crept up
after her in the dark. And then, suddenly, he was set upon and hustled
into a room. It was the White Moll, all right; and the shots came from
her companion, a man whom he described minutely--the description
being that of the Adventurer, of course. They seemed to think that he,
Danglar, was a plain-clothes man, and tried to sicken him of his job by
frightening him. And then they forced him through the window and down
the fire escape, and fastened him there with handcuffs to mock the
police, and the White Moll's companion had deliberately fired some more
shots to make s