“Now, as I see it,” Pride went on, leaning back in his chair and stroking a bony chin, “the only clew we have to the whereabouts of their headquarters is based on the assumption that these girls are used as decoys. If that is the case, they are probably located in the house where these orgies are given. That means a big house and big parties, several of them. And that means publicity—in town.” I started up. “You mean that the headquarters is somewhere out of town?” “Exactly,” he nodded. “They could not give more than one or, at most, two parties of that nature and on such a scale without the police and the newspapers getting wind of it.” “Well, then——” “Well, then, it means that if we searched or investigated all the houses of any size near New York which are within the radius of a two-hour run in a high-powered car, we would be at the job for months, we would warn them well in advance and they would skip and set up their establishment elsewhere.” “They would have to take the girls with them.” Pride dropped his eyes. “Not necessarily,” he said, in a low voice. “They could get more.” I felt as though I were struggling in the grip of a nightmare. “My God! do you mean—murder?” Pride gave an impatient gesture. “How can I tell, man? This is a big gang and a fearless one—and utterly unscrupulous. They are after power, it seems. They have a lot of it now. And they might not let a thing like that stop them.” I got up and began to pace the floor. “Well, then,” I demanded childishly, “what are we going to do about it? What are we going to do about it?” The helpless feeling of the early months of my search returned, magnified a hundred times. “My God, what kind of a Secret Service and police force have we got, anyway!” Pride hesitated. “That’s not quite fair, Clayton,” he answered at last, gravely. “We’ve done some pretty good work in the past. But we are working under the disadvantage of a certain amount of publicity. The gang got at one of our members or more and learned all about us long before we knew they existed. And we’re trying to find them, not they us.” “I know,” I answered, dropping into a chair. “I beg your pardon. I had no business to say that. But these last weeks—and now to-day——” “That’s all right. I don’t blame you.” Pride paused a moment. “But here’s what I’m getting at. If we can locate this gang we can round them up and run them in without any formality. And if we get them we’ll keep them. But we’ve got to find them first. And the only way I can think of to find them is to get taken to one of their parties.” I laughed. “We’ve tried that,” I said. “We’ve got to try it again, then.” “How?” I demanded. Pride leaned forward. “You got pretty thick with that Russian, Ivanovitch, wasn’t it, who served that doped tea?” “I tried to, but I don’t know how well it worked.” “Is there anything to connect you in his mind with the Department? Was he at Mrs. Fawcette’s the day Miss Van Cleef was captured?”