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Rh veyed a startling possibility to her mind, and she had as quickly and instinctively hidden it from him.

After a hasty lunch he made his way to the address which Smith had given him, and found himself facing a somber, old-fashioned apartment house of the cheaper grade, one of a long row identical with it which stretched the length of the block. He entered the vestibule, scrutinized the soiled cards inserted in the slots below the mail-boxes, and at length rang the janitor's bell.

After an interval heavy, shuffling footsteps sounded from within and the door opened, disclosing a fat, middle-aged woman with a good-natured if somewhat loose-lipped smile, which froze at sight of the stranger.

"If you've got me up all them stairs to try to sell me somethin'—", she began, but Odell cut her short.

"I haven't. I'm looking for a Mrs. Gael who used to live here, and if you can tell me anything which will help me to locate her I will make it worth your while."

The woman sniffed.

"Process-server?"

"No; a friend of hers." Odell smiled. "We've been unable to find out where she went from here, and it occurred to me that possibly you would know if you are the janitress. She has simply dropped from the sight of all her friends."

"Well, I wouldn't wonder." The woman sniffed again. "I guess if I had to be took off to a place like that I wouldn't want folks to know, either. Not that you'd ever have thought it for a minute to look at her or talk to her; but if I'd known she wasn't right you'd never have got me alone there in the flat with her."