Mr. Wattles started. "It may be so." "I am sure it is." "But I have seen nothing of Farley." "He would not be likely to let you see anything of him if he could help it." "True. Well, what shall we do? Command me, my boy; I am at your service." Before Al could reply the door, which the boy had only partially closed, was opened, and a man entered. Both our hero and the manager recognized him as one of the stage hands in the Rockton Theater. When he saw Al he started, then he said: "Mr. Wattles, I came here on purpose to get this here young gentleman's address." "My address?" cried Al. "What do you want that for?" "Is it true, sir," the man asked, "that the young lady as was on the bills as Miss Gladys March is your sister?" "Yes." "Then, sir, I have some information for you." "Do you know where she is?" demanded the boy, breathlessly. "No, sir; but I know that she is in a trap, and that if you want to save her you must act quick. I've come here, sir, to make a clean breast of my part in the affair." Overcome by excitement, Al seized the fellow by the throat and forced him to his knees. "Speak!" he hissed. "Tell the truth, or I will strangle you!" CHAPTER XXIV. A CLEW. Mr. Wattles stepped forward and gently forced Al to relax his hold on the man's throat. "Don't get excited, my boy," he said. "This is just the time when you need a cool head." "That's so, sir," added the visitor. "I don't blame the young gent for the way he feels, but if he expects to get the best of that villain, Jack Farley, he has got to keep his wits about him." "Then," gasped Al, "it was Farley that enticed her away?" "It was him, sir." "And what had you to do with it?" "More than I wish I had. The truth is, sir, I did not realize what I was doing at the time. I was not onto his game until it was too late, and then I----" "Don't beat about the bush any longer," interrupted Mr. Wattles, impatiently. "What was Farley's game?" "Where is my sister?" added Al, in an agony of suspense. "It's like this, gents," replied the man. "Just before the alarm of fire was given a man came to the stage door, where I happened to be standing at the time. His collar was turned up, and his hat was pulled down, and at first I did not recognize him. 'I want you to do me a favor,' he says. 'What is it?' says I, 'and who are you?' 'Don't you know me?' he asks me. 'No, I don't,' I tells him, 'and I ain't got no time to stand here fooling with you.' You see, I thought maybe he was a stage-door masher, though he didn't look much like one, to tell the truth, for he was dressed in a way that----" "Never mind all that," interrupted Mr. Wattles again. "Get to the point. The man told you he was Farley?" "He did, sir." "Why were you any more willing to talk to him then? Had you ever met him before?" "Oh, yes." "By your own admission you knew he was a villain. Why, then, were you willing to do him a favor?"