"Gone—no!" The man almost shouted in his anger. "How could they go?—Didn’t I say every outlet was blocked. They ain’t been here. They ain’t had her here. Get a match, light the gas—I got to see the place anyway." The torch’s ray had touched a gas fixture on the wall and hung steady there. As the men fumbled for matches, the janitor came clumping across the hall, calling in querulous protest: "Say—how’d you get in there? That ain’t the place—it’s rented." [Illustration: _His face was ludicrous in its enraged enmity_] He stopped in the doorway, scowling at them under the glow of his upheld lamp. A match sputtered over the gas and a flame burst up with a whistling rush. In the combined illumination the room was revealed as bleak and hideous, the walls with blistered paper peeling off in shreds, the carpet worn in paths and patches, an iron bed, a bureau, by the one window, a table. The janitor continuing his expostulations, O’Malley turned on him and flashed his badge with a fierce: "Shut up there. Keep still and get out. We’ve got a right here and if you make any trouble you’ll hear from us." The man shrank, scared. "Police!" he faltered, then looking from one to the other. "But what for? There’s no one here, there ain’t ever been any one—it’s took but it’s been empty ever since." O’Malley who had sent an exploring glance about him, made a dive for a newspaper lying crumpled on the floor by the bed. One look at it, and he was at the man’s side, shaking it in his face: "What do you say to this? Yesterday’s—how’d it get here? Blew in through the window maybe." The janitor scanned the top of the page, then raised his eyes to the watching faces. His fright had given place to bewilderment and he began a stammering explanation—if any one had been there he’d never known it, never seen no one come in or go out, never heard a sound from the inside. "Did you see any one—any one that isn’t a regular resident—come into the house yesterday or to-day?" It was George’s question. He didn’t know as he’d seen anybody—not to notice. The tenants had friends, they was in and out all day and part of the night. And anyway he wasn’t around much after he’d swept the halls and taken down the pails. Yesterday and to-day he guessed he’d stayed in the basement most of the time. If anybody had been in the room—and it looked like they had—it was unbeknownst to him. The lady had the key; she could have come in without him seeing; it wasn’t his business to keep tab on the tenants. He showed a tendency to diverge to the subject of his duties and George cut him off with a greenback pushed into his grimy claw and an order to keep their visit secret.