"This is how it happened, Mr. Carter: After I'd made sure that you wouldn't croak from that tumble I rushed around the corner of the house after Mr. Mannion. He was going through the garden--a regular tangle of all kinds of bushes--and I skinned after him. As he went over the fence into the next street this woman--she's a young thing, not over eighteen--hailed him and he stopped. But not for long, for, catching sight of me, he left the woman and made a lightning sprint toward the woods. Over the fence I went, to fall into the arms of the woman. She was very affectionate, must have thought I was her long-lost brother, for she caught me around the neck and gave me a hug and a squeeze that would have made a young grizzly bear fall down with envy. Naturally I objected, but I couldn't be as forcible in my objection as I might have been under other circumstances, for I was dealing with a woman." Nick smiled and Chick winked. "First thing I knew she tripped me up. I wasn't looking for that sort of thing, you know, and it was only when my block bumped the ground that I realized that I was really up against a tough proposition. What did I do? Well, I had to throw her off, but tiger cats are hard customers to deal with. They are like rubber balls. You chuck them away and back they come. I am ashamed to say it, Mr. Carter, but I wasted ten minutes with that woman and only got away from her when she was quite willing that I should do so." "Who is she?" inquired Nick. "Give it up. She knows Mannion, though, and I'll bet a Swiss cheese against a plate of boarding-house hash that she knows where Mannion has gone." "Did you follow her?" "I couldn't." "Couldn't? Why not?" "Because she did not give me a chance. She's standing there by the fence now, for all I know to the contrary. I wanted to follow her, but she knew what was in my mind, of course, and so she never moved." "Did she say anything?" "Oh, yes," said Patsy, rather sheepishly. "She said: 'Run home, little boy. Your mother must be anxious about you.'" Chick burst into a laugh. Nick looked at him in mock severity. Patsy frowned and repressed an inclination to say something forcible. "And so you lost track of your man, Patsy?" said the great detective. "Yes, sir. I went into the woods, that is, the wooded grounds of the War College, but could neither get sight of him nor find anybody who had seen him. I told my story to the officer in charge, and men were instantly detailed to make a search." "And that's all, eh?" "That's all." "And it is well, Patsy. You have done all that could have been expected." Nick patted the boy on the back. "You have not made a winning, it is true, but it was not on account of any fault of your own. Now," turning to Chick, "have you anything to report?" "Only this: I know where the woman who attacked Patsy holds out." "At Craven's, on L Street, isn't it?" suggested Nick quietly. "Sure. But how did you discover the fact?"