"I t'ought o' course she'd been fired out o' some boardin'-house," said Harrigan. "Dere's a hash-mill dere on der right. I had an idea she'd been trun out o' dere." Nick meanwhile had been examining the sidewalk with the aid of his dark lantern. "Clever work," he said. "There are no marks on the sidewalk. The trunks were not dragged. That woman must be pretty strong. You say you didn't see the trunks when you first drove up?" "No." "Then they couldn't have been here. Where were they? Not in any of these houses. She couldn't have got them out quick enough. Then they must have been behind that fence." There was a little gate in the fence, which Nick opened as he spoke. "Ah, here we have tracks," he said. "It's all clear enough now. The trunks were brought across this vacant lot from one of the houses facing the other street." The lot is the width of three flat houses, which stand behind it. There are no gates in the fence between the yards of the houses and the lot, but Nick found a wide board that could be pulled off and replaced without much trouble. Passing through the opening made by taking away this board, he found himself in the yard of the middle house. "The trunks came from here," he said. "They were lowered down in the dumb waiter to the cellar and then carried through the lot to Fifty-seventh street. "I'll leave the rest of this job to you, Patsy. Find out all you can and have as many witnesses as you can get together, at the superintendent's office to-morrow afternoon, at three o'clock. We're going to have a special examination into this case." The special examination began promptly at the hour named by Nick. All the persons hitherto mentioned in connection with the case--except, of course, the two victims--were present. There were also several witnesses whom Patsy had secured. "The case which I have made out," said Nick, "is perfectly clear. It begins with Gaspard's identification of the prisoner, Jones. "We know that he was at the restaurant when the crime was committed. His name is on the books. "In some way, which I am not now prepared to fully explain, the waiter, Corbut, obtained a knowledge of the crime. It was necessary for the criminal to get Corbut out of the way. "I saw Corbut get into a cab at the door of the restaurant. The driver, Harrigan, testified to taking him and another man to a point on West Fifty-seventh street. He was not sure of the exact spot, but he fixed the locality in a general way. "From that point all trace of Corbut was lost for a time. At last his body was found. "I succeeded in tracing the body back to a place near the spot where Harrigan last saw Corbut alive. "I discovered that the body had been removed from a flat house on West Fifty-eighth street. "My assistant, Patsy, questioned the people in that house. He learned that the third flat had been occupied by a couple who lived very quietly.