attracting more attention than in the most crowded tenement house in the
city."

"Where do you think, then, they would be liable to go?"

"Well my most matured thought on the subject," returned Mr. Gryce, after
a moment's deliberation, "is this,--you say, and I agree, that they
have hampered themselves with this woman at this time for the purpose of
using her hereafter in a scheme of black-mail upon Mr. Blake. He, then,
must be the object about which their thoughts revolve and toward which
whatever operations or plans they may be engaged upon must tend. What
follows? When a company of men have made up their minds to rob a bank,
what is the first thing they do? They hire, if possible, a house next to
the especial building they intend to enter, and for months work upon
the secret passage through which they hope to reach the safe and
its contents; or they make friends with the watchman that guards its
treasures, and the janitor who opens and shuts the doors. In short they
hang about their prey before they pounce upon it. And so will these
Schoenmakers do in the somewhat different robbery which they plan sooner
or later to effect. Whatever may keep them close at this moment, Mr.
Blake and Mr. Blake's house is the point toward which their eyes are
turned, and if we had time--"

"But we have'nt," I broke in impetuously. "It is horrible to think of
that grand woman languishing away in the power of such rascals."

"If we had time," Mr. Gryce persisted, "all it would be necessary to do
would be to wait, they would come into our hands as easily and naturally
as a hawk into the snare of the fowler. But as you say we have not, and
therefore, I would recommend a little beating of the bush directly about
Mr. Blake's house; for if all my experience is not at fault, those men
are already within eye-shot of the prey they intend to run down."

"But," said I, "I have been living myself in that very neighborhood and
know by this time the ways of every house in the vicinity. There is not
a spot up and down the Avenue for ten blocks where they could hide away
for two days much less two weeks. And as for the side streets,--why
I could tell you the names of those who live in each house for a
considerable distance. Yet if you say so I will go to work--"

"Do, and meanwhile Schmidt and Rosenthal shall rummage the German
quarter and even go through Williamsburgh and Hoboken. The end justifies
any amount of labor that can be spent upon this