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260 Hero-Man, with the faintest sound of a laugh. And he stood waiting to help me alight.

It was my turn to laugh as I stepped down beside him. For there isn't a law-breaker on all Manhattan Island, I suppose, who doesn't know the Big House up the River to be the other name for Sing Sing itself.

"I thought I was headed for something like that!" I told him, He leaned close, and peered into my face, as though my flippancy rather puzzled him. Then he led me cautiously out through the tangle of wet shrubbery, stopping and peering ahead every few steps. We were quite close to that vague and shadowy house by this time.

"This place is as empty as a church," he explained to me in a lowered voice, "and I want you to wait here until I open it up."

"How?" I demanded.

He showed me a bar of metal. He explained that it was the handle that fitted into the socket of a motor-jack.

"I'll jimmy one of the windows open," he calmly announced. "Then I'll come back for you!" The next moment he was gone. I was too tired to think what to do, or what I ought to do. I merely stood there, waiting, in no way amazed that my