Cautiously we retraced our steps and were again on the street without having alarmed any of the tenants of the flat through which we had gained access to the roofs.

It was now the forenoon and, although Garrick instituted a search in every place that he could think of where Mrs. de Laacey and Violet Winslow might go, including the homes of those of their friends whose names we could learn, it was without result.  I don’t think there can be many searches more hopeless than to try to find someone in New York when one has no idea where to look.  Only chance could possibly have thrown them in our way and chance did not favour us.

There was nothing to do but wait for the time when Miss Winslow might, of her own accord, turn up to visit her former maid for whom she apparently had a high regard.

Inquiries as to the antecedents of Lucille De Veau were decidedly unsatisfactory, not that they gave her a bad character, but because there simply seemed to be nothing that we could find out.  The maid seemed to be absolutely unknown.  Her brother was a waiter, though where he worked we could not find out, for he seemed to be one of those who are constantly shifting their positions.

Garrick had notified Dillon of what he had discovered, in a general way, and had asked him to detail some men to conduct the search secretly for Miss Winslow and her aunt, but without any better results than we had obtained.  Apparently the department stores had swallowed them up for the time being and we could only wait impatiently, trusting that all would turn out right in the end.  Still, I could not help having some forebodings in the matter.

It was in the middle of the afternoon that we had gone downtown to Garrick’s office, after stopping to secure the letter from the safe in the uptown hotel where it had been deposited for security during the night and placing it in a safety deposit vault where Garrick kept some of his own valuables.  Garrick had selected his office as a vantage point to which any news of Miss Winslow and her aunt might be sent by those whom we had out searching.  No word came, however, and the hours of suspense seemed to drag interminably.

“You’re pretty well acquainted on the star?” Garrick asked me at last, after we had been sitting in a sort of mournful silence wondering whether those on the other side might not be stealing a march on us.

“Why, yes, I know several people there,” I replied.  “Why do you ask?”

“I was just thinking of a possible plan of campaign that might be mapped out to bring these people from under cover,” he remarked thoughtfully.  “Do you think you could carry part of it through?”

I said I would try and Garrick proceeded to unfold a scheme which he had been revolving all day.  It consisted of as ingenious a “plant” as I could well imagine.

“You see,” he outlined, “if you could go over to the Star office and get them to run off a few copies of the paper, after they are through with the regular editions, I believe we can get the Chief started and then all we should have to do would be to follow him up—­or someone who would lead us to him.”