we know. Now, how was it done?”

“I don’t think a woman was mixed up in it. That girl looked like a perfect lady. An old night-hawk, who is as crooked as his whip, might do it. He could get a cab an’ turn the trick.”

“But the mysterious way of suffocating a man?”

The ex-convict scratched his head.

“That’s different,” he admitted. “O’Toole, Flynn, Fogarty, Harris an’ Johnson—they ought to discover something, Chester. Harrigan, Mr. Mott’s man, sent them running after you telephoned. He’s called on the Harlem Branch for three more of the Brotherhood to cover the case. You’ve got nine or ten boys out now.”

“Hardly enough. We’ll get more! Suppose we walk west for a block or two. I want to think this puzzle over.”

Rake fell in behind Fay. They crossed the street and took a shady side. The last rays of the western sun struck slanting through the cañon of tenements. The street resounded with the shouts of urchins playing ball. A truck went by as Fay paused and clicked keys in his pocket.

He glanced up at Rake.

“We’ll have to cover the Hudson River homes,” he said. “Looks to me as if the body was being taken over the railroad track when it was thrown on top of a freight-car. Who is investigating Poughkeepsie and the routing of the train?”

“O’Toole an’ Flynn went north, Chester.”

Fay dragged out his watch and studied the dial. “It’s too early yet for them to report. It’s too—”

He stared open-mouthed toward the Avenue ahead of him. He reached and clutched Rake’s arm. He gripped this with fingers of steel.

“Did you see that?”

“See wot, Chester?”

“The Gray taxi that went by?”

“I saw one. I didn’t notice it particularly.”

“It was being driven thirty miles an hour by Elsie De Groot! I’m positive it was her. Reddish hair and turned-up nose!”

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