Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/403

 (Murray Hill, 3324) Alpheus Hardy, 118 East Thirty-sixth Street.

"Well," he said, "the last one, Hardy, must go, because if she were going to East Thirty-sixth Street, the lady would have taken a local to Thirty-third-Street station. To-morrow we'll see what we can find out about the Cooks and Mannings. We'll see if my theory is correct. You have a description of the girl, I suppose?"

"Such as it is, not much; though he'd know her, of course, if he saw her again. He was too busy trying to take her message to have noticed or recalled much. He did say she wore chinchilla furs, though, had reddish hair, and either a scar or a deep dimple in her chin."

"I hope it's a dimple," said Astro, taking up his Paracelsus.

Valeska pouted, shook her fist at him, and retired.

The next morning a man purporting to be an agent of the New York Directory Company called at 199 West Forty-fifth Street and asked many questions. He had an affable way with him that quite won the heart of the maid who answered the door. She denied, however, that there was any young woman living in the house, which belonged to H. J. Cook.

That afternoon the same agent called at 521 West Seventy-third Street. He was met by a butler, who treated the agent with cold disdain and refused to commit himself more than to assert that the house was the residence of Peter J. Manning, wholesale wood dealer. The servant thawed out, however, in an inter-