“Are you sure you weren’t followed?” was his first inquiry. Esha replied by narrating the summary proceedings she had taken to get rid of the youth who had evidently been put as a spy on her track. “That was well done, Esha,” said Peek. “Remember you’ve got the sharpest kind of an old lawyer to deal with; and you must skin your eyes tight if you ’spect to ’scape being tripped.” “Wish I’d thowt ob dat dis mornin’, Peek; for ole Semmes has jes done his wustest,—carried off dat darlin’ chile, Miss Clara.” Peek could hardly suppress a groan at the news. “Now what’s to be done?” said Madame Volney. “Think of something quickly, or I shall go mad. That smooth-tongued Semmes,—O that I had the old scoundrel here in my grip! Can’t you find out where he has taken that dear child?” “That will be difficult, I fear,” said Peek; “difficult for the reason that Semmes will be on the alert to baffle us. He will of course conclude that some of us will be on his track. He would turn any efforts we might make to dog him directly against us, arresting us when we thought ourselves most secure, just as the boy-detective was arrested by Esha.” “But what if Ratcliff should return?” “That’s what disturbs me; for the papers say he has escaped.” “Then he may be here any moment?” “For that we must be prepared.” “But that is horrible! I pledged my word—my very life—that the poor child should be saved from his clutches. She _must_ be saved! Money can do it,—can’t it?” “Brains can do it better.” “Let both be used. Is not this a case where some medium can help us? Why not consult Bender?” “There is, perhaps, one chance in a hundred that he might guide us aright,” said Peek. “That chance I will try, but I have little hope he will find her. During the years I have been searching for my wife I have now and then sought information about her from clairvoyants; but always without success. The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. So with these spiritual doings. Look for them, and you don’t find them. Don’t look, and they come. I once knew a colored boy, a medium, who was lifted to the ceiling before my eyes in the clear moonlight. A white man offered him a hundred dollars if he would show him the same thing; but it couldn’t be. No sooner had the white man gone than the boy was lifted, while the rest of us were not expecting it, and carried backward and forward through the air for a full minute. Seeing is believing.” “But we’ve no time for talking, Peek. We must act. _How_ shall we act?” “Can you give me any article of apparel which Miss Clara has recently worn,—a glove, for instance?” “Yes, that can easily be got.” “Send it to me at once. Send also a glove which the lawyer has worn. Do not let the two come in contact. And be careful your messenger is not tracked.” “Do you mean to take the gloves to a clairvoyant?” “Not to a clear-see’er, but to a clear-smeller,—in short, to a four-footed medium, a bloodhound of my acquaintance.”