w back a little. He was an uninviting
and exceedingly disreputable old creature.

"You, eh, Nan!" he grunted. "So you've come to see old Jake Shluker,
have you? 'Tain't often you come! And what's brought you, eh?"

"I can read, can't I?" Rhoda Gray glanced furtively around her, then
leaned toward the other. "Say, wot's de lay? I been scared stiff all
day. Is dat straight wot de papers said about youse-know-who gettin'
pinched?"

A scowl settled over Shluker's features as he nodded.

"Yes; it's straight enough," he answered. "Damn 'em, one and all! But
they let him out again."

"Dat's de stuff!" applauded Rhoda Gray earnestly. "Where is he, den?"

Shluker shook his head.

"He didn't say," said Shluker.

"He didn't say?" echoed Rhoda Gray, a little tartly. "Wot d'youse mean,
he didn't say? Have youse seen him?"

Shluker jerked his hand toward the telephone instrument on the desk.

"He was talkin' to me a little while ago."

"Well, den"--Rhoda Gray risked a more peremptory tone--"where is he?"

Shluker shook his head again.

"I dunno," he said. "I'm tellin' you, he didn't say."

Rhoda Gray studied the wizened and repulsive old creature, that, huddled
in his chair in the dirty, boxed-in little office, made her think of
some crafty old spider lurking in its web for unwary prey. Was the man
lying to her? Was he in any degree suspicious? Why should he be? He
had given not the slightest sign that her uncouth language was either
unexpected or unnecessary. Perhaps to Shluker, and perhaps to all the
rest of the gang--except Danglar!--Gypsy Nan was accepted at face
value as just Gypsy Nan; and, if that were so, the idea of playing up
a natural wifely anxiety on Danglar's behalf could not be used unless
Shluker gave her a lead in that direction. But, all that apart, she was
getting nowhere. She bit her lips in disappointment. She had counted a
great deal on this Shluker here, and Shluker was not proving the fount
of information, far from it, that she had hoped he would.

She tried again-even more peremptorily than before.

"Aw, open up!" she snapped. "Wot's de use bein' a clam! Youse heard me,
didn't youse? Where is he?"

Shluker leaned abruptly forward, and looked at her in a suddenly
perturbed way.

"Is there anything wrong?" he asked in a tense, lowered voice. "What
makes you so anxious to know?"

Rhoda Gray laughed shortly.

"Nothin'!" she answered coolly. "I told youse once, didn't I? I got a
scare rea