Thus he found that to all appearances John had driven down town, and taken the gentleman to several places besides the apartment house where he held forth. Altogether they had visited three houses where games of chance were going on but there was so much trouble effecting an entrance to these places that it had consumed much time. If this were true it would make the puzzle darker than ever. The question was, could John be trusted? He had to watch the man keenly in order to read him at all. An Irishman can dissemble about as well as the next one, and this jehu was a particularly bright boy, from the “ould dart.” “Did you meet any one you knew about a quarter of twelve?” asked the detective. “Did I—yes, it was just striking the midnight hour when I spoke to Mike Crotty, the night police at the corner av Broadway and Worth Street.” “I know him—what remarks passed?” “We both spoke av the bells—and Mike towld me about a dancing in the moonlight he saw wanst in ould Ireland, when the fairies came out to howld their only ball—it was at this hour he seen it and lost his mind. Whin he found it again the beastly work had stopped and the fairies were gone.” “Well, I guess it’s too late for me to do what I meant to. I won’t need you to-day, John. Sometime I may want your help.” With these words Eric Darrell coolly turned and walked away. The Irishman looked after him quizzically. “He’s an odd genius, but, d’ye know, I rather like the man. Just as if I don’t know where he’s gone. Hope he finds Mike Crotty on deck this fine day.” CHAPTER IX JOE’S SECRET Mike Crotty was on deck. Eric readily found him. The man was a stranger to him, but there is a mystic tie between the detectives and police in a great city—they work in harmony. Soon the two men were conversing with the greatest freedom. Crotty had often heard of Detective Darrell, and was only too glad to supply any information that lay in his power. He remembered meeting the hackman and spoke of the bells ringing out the midnight hour. There could be no mistake. When Eric left the officer, he was a badly puzzled man to be sure. Instead of having solved the mystery it was assuming even darker proportions, and the chances seemed equally divided. Was Joe guilty or not? If, as these men agreed, he was at a certain place just as the solemn midnight hour rang out, how could he have been at the _bal masque_—it was at that hour of unmasking the Spanish bull fighter and his consort, the Lady of Cards, drove away in another vehicle and yet—that man possessed the stalwart figure of Joe Leslie—Eric believed he would know it anywhere—he had answered to the name of Joe, while his companion was Marian. The difficulties in the way might have daunted a less persevering officer than Darrell. They only spurred him on to renewed exertions. He gloried in a puzzle.