It was so fitted that the trunks, when closed, were water-tight.

“The neatest job I ever saw,” said Nick.  “Come, Gaspard, tell the story.”

“I swear to you,” cried Gaspard, “that I know nothing about it.”

At this moment Patsy rapped on the door.  He had brought back Harrigan.

“Come in!” said Nick; and they both entered.

“Holy mother!” shrieked Harrigan, when he saw the open trunks.  “So help me, gentlemen, I don’t know nothing about this business.  I ain’t in it.  I’m tellin’ yer straight.  Youse don’t believe I had anything to do wid this, do yer?”

“You brought the trunks here,” said Nick.

“Lemme tell youse all about it,” cried Harrigan, who was so anxious to tell that he couldn’t talk fast enough.  “De French leddy struck me on me old place.  You know.  Where I was de odder night.

“She talked a kind o’ dago, but I tumbled to what she was a-givin’ me.  This was about half-past seven o’clock.

“‘Meet me,’ says she, ‘in an hour.’  An’ she give me street an’ number.

“It was West Fifty-seventh street; but dere ain’t no such number.  Dere’s nuttin’ but a high board fence.

“But that didn’t make no difference, ’cause when I got dere, her jiblets was a-standing on der sidewalk, waitin’ for me.

“‘Drive over ter de corner,’ says she, ‘and’ turn round an’ come back.’

“I did it, an’ when I got dare, she showed me dese two trunks.  I hadn’t seen ’em before.

“Den she give me dis mug’s address, an’ two bones for me fare, an’ tole me ter come down here, which I did, an’ I wish ter ——­ I hadn’t; see?”

“That’s a pretty good story, Harrigan,” said Nick.  “Patsy, get a policeman to stay here with Gaspard.”

Patsy brought the blue-coat in a few minutes.

“Now, we’ll go up to Fifty-seventh street,” said Nick.

Half an hour later they had found the place where, as Harrigan claimed, “de French leddy” had delivered the trunks to him.

“I t’ought o’ course she’d been fired out o’ some boardin’-house,” said Harrigan.  “Dere’s a hash-mill dere on der right.  I had an idea she’d been trun out o’ dere.”

Nick meanwhile had been examining the sidewalk with the aid of his dark lantern.

“Clever work,” he said.  “There are no marks on the sidewalk.  The trunks were not dragged.  That woman must be pretty strong.  You say you didn’t see the trunks when you first drove up?”

“No.”

“Then they couldn’t have been here.  Where were they?  Not in any of these houses.  She couldn’t have got them out quick enough.  Then they must have been behind that fence.”

There was a little gate in the fence, which Nick opened as he spoke.

“Ah, here we have tracks,” he said.  “It’s all clear enough now.  The trunks were brought across this vacant lot from one of the houses facing the other street.”

The lot is the width of three flat houses, which stand behind it.  There are no gates in the fence between the yards of the houses and the lot, but Nick found a wide board that could be pulled off and replaced without much trouble.