While he was talking Jock had pushed him into the small room to the left of the door, which happened at the moment to be unoccupied. Placing one big thumb against the bell, he kept it there until the attendant appeared on the run and took their order. "Now," exclaimed Hamersley, sinking into a chair, "where’d he go? Harlem?" "Harlem? No. He went up three blocks and then hopped onto a stage going downtown. Luckily I was just about a block behind, so I sprinted and grabbed it. We rode down to Fourteenth, and then he got off. I stayed on half a block longer, then beat it. I was hustling back, keeping well in near the buildings, when I saw him coming down with another guy, and I slipped into a doorway. As luck would have it, they stopped a couple of feet past me for the stranger to light a cigarette, and I heard about all they said. They talked in riddles, of course, but I made out pretty clearly that they’ve got a girl locked up somewhere, and that they caught her by telling her some fellow was in trouble. I made out, too, that the girl put up something of a fight, but they told her if she didn’t keep quiet ’twould be worse for the fellow, and she behaved after that. They said they’d have him by nine o’clock. Do you suppose they meant Barry Lawrence?" "Sure!" said Hamersley hoarsely. "But how did you make out all of that, Shrimp? They must have been boobs to talk so much in the open street." "Oh, they weren’t so slow," protested Bradley; "but neither am I, Jock. I kept my ears open and read between the lines. What they said couldn’t have meant much of anything else." "Well, go on!" cried Jock impatiently. "That’s all I heard," said Bradley. "They were moving off by that time and the wind was blowing the other way. I let ’em get ’most to the next corner before I slipped out after them. They went down the avenue as far as Eleventh, and then turned west, with me following as close as I dared. I reckon they weren’t thinking about any one being after ’em, though, because they never once looked back. They went down the street almost to the next corner, then walked up the steps of a brownstone front, opened the door with a latchkey, and stepped in. In a couple of minutes I pranced past to get the number, noticed the sign, ’Rooms to Let,’ boarded a Sixth Avenue car, grabbed a taxi at Twenty-third Street, and hustled back." Hamersley nodded, but remained silent. "What’s biting you, Jock?" inquired Bradley sharply. "Aren’t you wise to what I’m telling you? Don’t you catch on that there’s a girl in trouble?" "Sure!" gasped Hamersley. "But what girl?" "What girl!" snapped Shrimp. "How do I know, when you didn’t tell me anything? Don’t you know?" Jock shook his head dazedly. "First I’ve heard of any girl," he returned weakly. "I thought it was——" "What girl are you talking about?" demanded a voice from the doorway, in a tone which made both men jump.