Once more the old flivver traveled the familiar way up-town. In thin extended Manhattan Island places are bound to be far from other places, and the inhabitants learn to take their long rides for granted. Greg and Hickey always took the same route, and in the course of their ride the whole panorama of town was spread before them in its variety.

First there was Houston Street, the heart of the ghetto with its tall old tenements, its narrow stores and vociferous push-cart venders. Then there was Second Avenue, the Great White Way of the East Side. Second Avenue was lined with great Jewish theaters and smoky Hungarian restaurants, bursting at this hour; the pavements thronged with the East Side crowd bound nowhere in particular; the young girls painted and bedizened, yet fresh young girls for all that; the loutish youths, the coiffed dames and the bearded elders. There followed a long, quiet interval where Hickey was able to open his throttle, through east Fourteenth Street, and up Fourth Avenue with its gigantic loft buildings now dark and empty. At Thirty-fourth Street they climbed a little hill and with another of the abrupt transitions for which the town is famous found themselves in the ultra-fashionable neighborhood of Murray Hill, where it was not yet dinner time, where discreet and perfectly-appointed town cars were waiting at the doors to take the Olympians out to dine.

Then circling the great new railway terminal they sped on up the newer Park Avenue with its empty spaces between the brand-new mighty apartment houses reaching Heavenwards, and with rents in accordance. They turned through Fifty-ninth Street, a narrow hybrid street of book-shops, studio-warrens, lunch counters and red trolley cars, and emerging at the Plaza, seat of fashion again, cut diagonally across the Park, where the night breathed quietly, and emerging at the West Seventy-second Street entrance, made their way to Riverside Drive, the Heaven of the unfashionable well-to-do and Manhattan's finest night-piece, where the street lights, the naked trees, the stars, the gleaming river and the twinkling lights on the further shore made an unforgettable harmony.

As they traveled Greg leaned forward on the sill of the front window, and while gratefully biting into Bessie's thick sandwiches told Hickey all that had happened during the afternoon. Hickey kept up a sort of terrified, delighted comment on the tale. Hickey made no pretensions to be a man of courage, but Greg had learned by this that he was quite as dependable as many a braggart.

"You opened her up on Riverside—and him after you and a lot of other cars and all! Oh Lordy! ... He picked up a cop, and still you didn't stop! It's a wonder he didn't pull his gun on you! ... All around through the streets! It's lucky it wasn't me at the wheel! I'd have fainted clean away!"

Presently Hickey asked nervously: "What's the program for to-night? Any more hold-ups or runaways? I tell you the flivver ain't runnin' so good."

"I can't tell," said Greg. "We have to be ready for anything."

"Lordy! I see my finish!" said Hickey.

Greg made him stop in the block below the Stickney Arms. Pa Simmons drew up behind. The four men gathered together, and Greg issued his instructions.

"You all wait here with the cabs. Shut off your engines. I'll go ahead and look over the ground. If I have to stay on watch I'll take cover in that clump of bushes opposite the entrance. Keep your eye on me. If I want you in a hurry I'll signal with my pocket flash. One flash, start your engines; two flashes move your cars up; three flashes shut your engines off; four flashes come on foot on the run."

After making them repeat this code after him, Greg went on to the apartment house. First from across the road he took a survey of the windows of the de Socotra apartment. All the windows including Amy's were lighted. This was reassuring since it suggested they were still within. Greg then boldly entered the building. To his disappointment he saw that another shift of servants was now on duty in the hall. This meant that new relations must be established. But proceeding further back, to his joy he discovered Frank, now shorn of his gorgeous livery, sitting in an inconspicuous corner under the stairs.

Frank seemed no less glad to see Greg. Eagerly coming forward he said: "I was looking for you, boss. It's my time off, but I thought there'd be somepin doing to-night, so I just stuck around."

"Good man!" said Greg.

"On the level, was it you here this afternoon, made up like a bum taxi-driver and all?"

"That was me," said Greg.

The boy's eyes sparkled with admiration. "Gee! you're some sport, fellow. You deserve to get her! That was some chase you give them. We watched it from the door as far as we could see down the Drive. But the old man got her back off you. Tough luck!"

"Well, I'll have another try to-night," said Greg.

"Say, count me in on it," begged Frank. "I don't care if I do lose me job!"

Greg's heart warmed towards the boy. "Much obliged," he said. "I shan't forget it. But I've already got my gang outside."

"Gee!" cried Frank. "Somepin doin' all right! I'm glad I didn't go home!"

"Is the family all up-stairs?" asked Greg.

Frank nodded.

"Find out who he's been telephoning to, will you? I suppose the operator's been listening in."

"You bet we ain't losing nothing from that apartment now. I can tell you without asking him. The Spanish bloke's been telephoning to a doctor guy that runs a sanitarium-like on Eighty-third Street; I took down the address for you; it's Doctor Tasker, 411 West Eighty-third. Seems her old man's going to take her there to-night. He's trying to make out she's looney."

"I know," Greg said. "Can I get up-stairs by the service elevator, and have a word with the maid?"

"She's fired," said Frank.

"The deuce you say!"

"Se?or Soak-oater turned her out soon as he come home. She's down in the basement now, crying to the engineer's wife, 'cause she ain't got no place to go."

"I'll fix that," said Greg. "Show me the way."

In the tidy sitting-room of an underground apartment Greg found the good-looking Spanish girl that he had seen in attendance on Amy. She was red-eyed and sniffing now. A burly, kindly Irishwoman was attempting to console her.

At the door Frank announced without ceremony: "Fellow to see you."

Nina looked at Greg with a fresh access of terror. Perhaps her first thought was that de Socotra had set the police after her.

Greg announced his name. "Do you know who I am?" he asked.

A wonderful change took place in the girl's face. "Si, si, se?or," she cried. Then in English to the Irishwoman. "It's all right now, Mrs. McArdle, I am saved!"

Her Latin enthusiasm was gratifying but a little disconcerting to an Anglo-Saxon male. "Sure, it's all right," he said grinning. "I want to have a little talk with you."

Mrs. McArdle rose. "Take my parlor, sir. Sure, it'll be a honor to me. I want to say that all of us that works in the house is on your side and the pretty little lady's!"

"Thank you, Mrs. McArdle," said Greg smiling and blushing. "It won't take but a few minutes. You don't need to go out."

"Sure I got me work in the kitchen," said she. At the door as sh............