Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/296

 "There's the man who wrote the letter! Follow him, Valeska! Find out who he is and all that's possible! We must follow every lead."

Valeska was off on the instant, running down the steps and walking swiftly up Twenty-third Street.

Astro lighted a cigar, turned up his collar and waited another half-hour in the doorway. Nobody having entered or left number 109 by that time, he rang the bell of number 111. A Swedish maid came to the door.

"I'd like to see what rooms you have," said Astro.

"The only one is on the third floor rear," she replied, and showed him up two flights of unlighted stairs, steep and narrow, to a small square room, meagerly furnished. Walking to the window, Astro saw that, level with the floor, was a tin-covered roof over an extension in the rear. It stretched along the whole width of the four houses in the row. On this he might easily stand and look into the adjoining windows. Saying that he would move in later, Astro paid the girl for a week's rent in advance, and left the house and walked home.

Valeska next morning came full of news. "The German kept right along Twenty-third Street toward Broadway," she said, "and it occurred to me that I might get him to make the first advances, and get acquainted without being suspected. So I passed him, and very gracefully slipped on the snow and dropped my purse. Then I began looking about on the sidewalk for the money that might have dropped out. My German friend came along and offered to help me. It took some time, and the long and short of it was that we