There being no one to stop him now, Lefty walked to the door leading into the alley, found the key in the lock and turned it. One backward look he cast at the two figures on the floor and the man who leaned against the wall, clutching at his shoulder. Policemen seemed to be scarce in that neighborhood, and Locke found one with difficulty. The officer listened incredulously to Lefty's story. "Mike's is a quiet place," he said. "Didn't make a mistake about where this happened, did you? Well, come on; we'll go round there and see about it." The saloon was open when they reached it. The red-headed bartender was serving beer to an Italian and a Swede. The vagrant had vanished. The man behind the bar listened with a well-simulated air of growing indignation when the policeman questioned him. He glared at the pitcher. "What are you tryin' to put across, bo?" he demanded fiercely. "You never were in here before in your life. Tryin' to give my place a bad name? Nothin' like what you say ever happened around here. Nice little yarn about bein' decoyed here by some coves that tried to beat you up! Say, officer, is this a holdup?" "I've told you what he told me," said the policeman. "In my back room!" raged the barkeeper. "There ain't been nobody in there for the last two hours. Come here an' have a look." He walked to the door and flung it open. Skullen and his partners were gone. Even the broken table had been removed. There was nothing to indicate that a desperate encounter had taken place there a short time before. "You cleaned up in a hurry," said Lefty. At this the barkeeper became still more furious, and was restrained by the officer, who scowled at the pitcher even as he held the other back. "You don't look like you'd been hitting the pipe, young feller," growled the representative of the law; "but that yarn about being attacked by three men looks funny. Don't notice any marks of the scrap on you. They didn't do you much damage, did they? Say, you must have had a dream!" Locke saw the utter folly of any attempt to press the matter. "As long as you insist upon looking at it in that way, officer," he returned, with a touch of contempt that he could not repress, "we'll have to let it go at that. But I'll guarantee that there are three men somewhere in this neighborhood who'll have to have various portions of their anatomies patched up by a doctor as the aftermath of that dream." CHAPTER XXXI LIGHT ON A DARK SPOT Janet returned from the matinee in a state of great excitement. "She's here!" she cried, bursting in on Lefty. "You were right about it! I've seen her!" The southpaw gazed in surprise at the flushed face of his charming wife. "You mean--" "Virginia! I tell you I've seen her!" "When? Where?"