At exactly half after nine that evening I stepped off car No. 6 at the crossing of West Fourth and Eleventh streets. The grocery was on the northwest corner, and I entered without hesitation.

Like many other big cities, New York (even excluding the transpontine suburbs) is a collection of towns and villages rather than a h.o.m.ogeneous munic.i.p.ality. Chelsea and Harlem and the upper West Side--all these are distinct and separate centres of community life.

Greenwich Village knows naught of Yorkville, and the East Side Ghetto has no dealings with the inhabitants of the French quarter.

Now the small area bounded by Waverley Place, Christopher, West Fourth, and West Eleventh streets is also a law unto itself. The neighborhood is respectable and severely old fashioned, the houses large and comfortable, and the resident population almost entirely native New-Yorkers in moderate circ.u.mstances. A village, then, with its shops and school-houses and churches; it is as provincial in its way as the Lonelyville of the comic weeklies. The grocery is the village club, at least for the respectable part of the male population, the men who would not be seen in a corner saloon. There were half a dozen of the regulars now in the shop, seated on boxes and chairs around the stove, for it was a raw and chilly day. They looked up as I entered, but no one moved or spoke. Undoubtedly my man was in the group, but how to pick him out. I walked to the counter and addressed the young fellow who lounged behind it.

"Two pounds of the best b.u.t.ter, please."

"All out," was the unexpected reply.

"All out!" I repeated, stupidly.

"None of the best--that's what I said."

"I wanted a purple trading-stamp," I went on, helplessly.

"Anything over five cents' worth--jar of pickles, if you like."

"No, not that. Here, give me--how much are those cigars?"

"Five and ten."

"Ten cents, then."

The young man handed out the box with a nonchalant air. "Help yourself," he said.

I selected a cigar. "You're sure you haven't any b.u.t.ter--the BEST b.u.t.ter?"

"Ah, now, whadjer giving us? This ain't no Tiffany & Co. Best b.u.t.ter?

Uh! P'r'aps you'd like to take a peck of di'monds home wid jer--the best di'monds, mind, all ready sh.e.l.led and fried in gold-dust. And just throw in a bunch of them German-silver banglelets for the salad.

Yessir; charge 'em to Mr. Astor, Astorville, N. G."

The loungers about the stove sn.i.g.g.e.red audibly, but something in the fellow's voice made me forget his insolence. I looked up and into the eyes of Esper Indiman.

I think I did it pretty well--the cool, ignoring stare with which one is accustomed to put a boor out of countenance.

"Let me have a light," I went on, quietly, and the pretended grocer's boy was zealous to oblige, scratching the match himself and leaning across the counter to hold the flame to the cigar end.

"Coach waiting for you in front of the church," he whispered. "Drive straight home and slowly--to give him a chance."

I left the shop without troubling to glance at the loungers about the fire; Indiman would attend to that part of the business. The coach was in waiting at the Baptist Church, and the driver touched his hat when I mentioned my name. I gave him the address, and told him to drive slowly. As we turned into Seventh Avenue I looked back and saw a cab following.

An hour later Indiman came in and joined me in the library. "Now, then!" I said, impatiently, after waiting to see him mix a high-ball and light a tremendously black breva. Indiman is a little provoking at times with his infinite deliberation.

"Where were we?" he began. "Ah, yes, I had my theory about finding the chap who wrote out that message. It was correct--absolutely so," and Indiman puffed away in dreamy content, staring up at the ceiling.

"I know Mason of the main Western Union office quite well, and he was most obliging. Recognized the peculiarity of the telegraphic sending at once; there actually was a fellow who had a habit of interjecting the superfluous S in his despatches. Name of Ewall, and he was the operator in a sub-station near Jefferson Market.

"Well, I posted up there and sounded him. He didn't know anything about it at first, so I had to scare him a bit; he weakened then, and told me what I wanted to know.

"Of course it wasn't a real message; he had run it off on his machine at the request of a queer-looking gentleman who had given him a couple of dollars for his trouble. According to his description, the man was stout and dark, with one ear--the left--decidedly larger than the other."

"Aha! the fellow we saw at the bazaar. But he wasn't in the group about the grocery stove."

"Of course not, but he had his capper there."

"Go on."

"Well, I thanked Mr. Ewall for his information, and left him with a solemn admonition to be more careful in the future about doing business on the side. Then I sat down to consider.

"Now, I was sure that the grocery and its proprietor, the two pounds of the best b.u.t.ter, and the purple trading-stamp had nothing to do with the real business of the evening. The game was simply to identify the 'Mr. House-smith' who had advertised for his ninety-and-nine kisses, and the clap-trap of the message in telegraphic characters, and all the rest of it, were simply the kind of bait at which so eccentric a person might be expected to bite. The gentleman with one ear larger than the other desired to find the elusive Mademoiselle D., erstwhile dispenser of kisses at an East Side charity bazaar, and, consequently, he was following up every possible clew. He wanted 'Mr. House-smith,' and I wanted him.

"Fight shadows with shadows, remember; and so I took service with my honest friend, David Brown, dealer in groceries at West Fourth and Eleventh streets. He was rather offish at first, but Mattson, at Police Head-quarters, had provided me with a special detective badge, and Mr Brown was led to believe that I was working up a case of graft. He lent me a jumper, and I was forthwith installed behind the counter.

"Everything went off according to schedule. The 'shadow' had his cab in readiness and I had mine. He trailed you to No. 4020 Madison Avenue, and I followed Mr. Shadow to the Central Detective Office. It seems to have been a case of sleuth against sleuth, with the match all square."

"Anything else?"

"Well, yes. As I came into the house just now, two men were waiting for me in the vestibule. They went through me; but I didn't seem to have what they wanted. I still retain possession of my watch and purse."

"So," I said, somewhat helplessly. "What's the next move on the board?"

"It is the last night of the supplementary opera season," answered Indiman, "and we are going to dress and see what we can of Tschaikowsky's 'Queen of Spades.' A novelty--first and only performance outside of Russia, and Ternina heads the cast."

"There is Mademoiselle D.," remarked Indiman, as his gla.s.s swept the semicircle of the parterre. "The fourth box from the end."

There were but three people in the party--the girl with the gray eyes, an elderly man with a ribbon in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and Jack Crawfurd, whom everybody knows.

The curtain fell on the third act, and immediately Crawfurd made his appearance in the omnibus-box where we were sitting.

"Come with me, mes enfants," he said, genially. "It seems that you and the adorable Countess Gilda are old friends. She commands your instant attendance. What, man! do you hesitate? I shall lose my head an our sovereign lady be not instantly obeyed."

The girl with the gray eyes greeted us with smiling unconcern. "Do you know my uncle?" she asked, and we were forthwith presented to his Excellency Baron Ca.s.silis, the Russian amba.s.sador to the United States.

Then the Countess Gilda addressed herself squarely to Indiman.

"I am in your debt, Mr. Indiman, and you must permit me to discharge the obligation. My dear uncle, your purse."

Indiman bowed and accepted the fifty-dollar bill tendered him.

"Now we are quits," she said, smiling.

"Not quite," he answered, hardily. He drew a half-dollar from his waistcoat-pocket and offered it to her. A flood of color mantled her brow, but she took the coin and slipped it into her glove. "Well?" she asked, her small chin defiantly uptilted.

"I have only one question," said Indiman, earnestly. "Is there danger for you?"

"None in the world."

"Then I am quite satisfied."