He had made time to amplify this to the fullest extent possible. To this end, he had called again on the janitor, Angelo Russo, at the apartment in Waverly Place, late in the afternoon following his experience with the _soi-disant_ Mrs. Florence Smith. He had gone quietly into the old apartment house and, unheralded, had sought the janitor in his own domain. In the dark, stuffy basement, he had interviewed Angelo and his invalid wife, who appeared almost too ill to answer any questions. "She not know noding 'bout noding," Angelo said, interposing his short body, protectively, between Peter and his wife. "She sick long time. Doc', she say mus' have fresh air--count-ree. How get him, me? Try ev' way I know, Godalmighty! but no good--Angelo have no lucka--only troub'--jus' troub'." "Did your wife ever see Miss Anne Blake?" asked Peter, touched, in spite of his preoccupation, by the poor, stupid Italian's sincere distress. "That's all I want to know." "Yes. Me seen her long time 'go," said the wife, in a thin, weak voice. "Long time 'go," she repeated, sadly. "Could you describe her to me? Tell me how she looked?" asked Peter, kindly. "A woman sometimes sees more than a man." But the poor woman's powers of description were little better than her husband's. She insisted, however, that Anne Blake was not thin, "not skinny," but--Peter supplied the word--slender. "Yes, she was slen', but stronga. Me see her lif' biga heavy ting, carry 'em 'roun' lika easy. No, not skinny--what you say, slen'? Yes." This was the only way in which her description varied from Angelo's. After leaving the Russos, Peter had found two or three tradesmen, in the immediate vicinity, who knew Anne Blake by sight. He was able to determine from them that her appearance was, in a general way, such as before described. As to the birthmark, one or two thought it was on the left, and the others thought it was on the right, cheek. One perhaps fanciful lady, who owned a small bake shop, said she remembered it well, and that it was certainly on the right cheek, extending down on the neck. That it looked to her something like the mark of a hand, a big spot below, and four--or was it only three--smaller ones, running up on the cheek. "Dark it was, like blood, an' awful to have upon ye, the poor thing!" This was all that Peter had to go upon in his subsequent attempts to trace Anne Blake, and only once, after investigation, had he been at all assured that he had found a genuine clue. This happened on the Wednesday following the disappearance.