He left her presently, convinced against his reason that she was not the guilty thing he had painted her in his mind. Cold-blooded judgment was against her! Dumb evidence pointed directly at her! But some finer sense told him it could not possibly be that this girl was guilty. Leaving the house for the second time that day and going downtown, his ears were assailed by the cries of the newsboys, who were selling extra editions based on the strange crime--murder or abduction. He went to the last place of residence given him by the girl. Ringing the bell, he inquired for the landlady. It was a cheap but respectable boarding house, suited to the means of a girl who was compelled to make her living standing behind the counter of a large dry-goods store. The landlady presently entered, beaming all over. Seeing in the stranger a prospective new boarder she greeted him with her very sweetest smile of welcome. Nick Carter did not mean to leave her under the impression that he was seeking board. Quickly disabusing her mind of this idea, he said: “I came to see Miss Doane on a matter of business, but am informed that she is not in.” This was the case, although not so reported by the servant. He went on: “I asked to see you, judging that perhaps you could tell me what I want to know and thus save me a second visit here.” Like most landladies, this one had a weakness for talking, and the detective had taken her on a weak point. To be able to give some information, and be of importance in somebody’s eyes, if even for a few minutes, was sufficient to mollify the woman in face of the disappearance of prospective profits and less troublesome butchers and bakers. She complacently arranged the folds of her dress and settled herself to be interrogated. “Miss Doane has been with you some time?” “She has.” “How long?” “Nearly or quite two years.” “She is a very estimable young lady, I take it?” “She is, indeed. I never want a nicer lady in my house, and I never before had one.” “She is very circumspect in her relations with gentlemen?” “She couldn’t be more so.” “Did she ever have any gentlemen visitors?” “Once in a very great while. There was one gentleman who came occasionally that I liked very much. He was tall and dark-complexioned, with a pair of excruciating side whiskers.” The detective smiled to himself, as he recognized in this description Mr. Barnes. “But he was not the only one?” “No, there was another, and a very nice man he seemed to be. He never came as much as the first one I spoke about.” “Can you describe him?” “Yes. A tallish man, too, rather chunkily built, with a mustache and a goatee.” That suited Demas Lorton, all but the goatee. This, however, might very easily have been false. Returning to the charge, the detective inquired: “Did Miss Doane often go out in the evening?” “Seldom or never.” “Do you remember an instance?” “Only one, and then she went out with the side-whiskered chap.”