Chapter 6 THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN

Mr. Birnes' busy heels fairly spurned the pavements of Fifth Avenue as he started toward Madison Square. Here was a long line of cabs drawn up beside the curb, some twenty or thirty in all. The fifth from the end bore the number he sought-Mr. Birnes chuckled; and there, alongside it, stood William Johns, swapping Billingsgate with the driver of a hansom, the while he kept one eye open for a prospective fare. It was too easy! Mr. Birnes paused long enough to congratulate himself upon his marvelous acumen, and then he approached the driver.

"You are William Johns?" he accused him sharply.

"That's me, Cap," the cabby answered readily.

"A few minutes past four o'clock this afternoon you went up Fifth Avenue, and stopped at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street to pick up a fare-a young man."

"Yep."

"You drove him to the corner of Sixty-seventh Street and Fifth

Avenue," the detective went on just to forestall possible denials.

"He got out there, paid you, and you went on up Fifth Avenue."

"Far be it from me to deceive you, Cap," responded the cabby with irritating levity. "I done that same."

"Who was that man?" demanded Mr. Birnes coldly.

"Search me! I never seen him before."

The detective regarded the cabby with accusing eyes. Then, quite casually, he flipped open his coat and Johns caught a glimpse of a silver shield. It might only have been accident, of course, still-

"Now, Johns, who was the man in the cab when you stopped to pick up the second man at Thirty-fourth Street?"

"Wrong, Cap," and the cabby grinned. "There wasn't any man."

"Don't attempt to deny-"

"No man, Cap. It was a woman."

"A woman!" the detective repeated. "A woman!"

"Sure thing-a woman, a regular woman. And, Cap, she was a pippin, a peachorino, a beauty bright," he added, gratuitously.

Mr. Birnes stared thoughtfully across the street for a little while. So there was a woman in it! Mr. Wynne had transferred the contents of the gripsack to her, in a cab, on a crowded thoroughfare, right under his nose!

"I was a little farther down the line there," Johns went on to explain. "About a quarter of four o'clock, I guess, she came along. She got in, after telling me to drive slowly up Fifth Avenue so I would pass Thirty-fourth Street five minutes or so after four o'clock. If a young man with a gripsack hailed me at the corner I was to stop and let him get in; then I was to go on up Fifth Avenue. If I wasn't stopped I was to drive on to Thirty-fifth Street, cut across to Madison Avenue, down to Thirty-third Street, then back to Fifth Avenue and past Thirty-fourth Street again, going uptown. The guy with the gripsack caught us first crack out of the box."

"And then?" demanded the detective eagerly.

"I went on up Fifth Avenue, according to sailing orders, and the guy inside stopped me at Sixty-seventh Street. He got out and gimme a five-spot, telling me to go a few blocks, then turn and bring the lady back to the Sixth Avenue 'L' at Fifty-eighth Street. I done it. That's all. She went up the steps, and that's the last I seen of her."

"Did she carry a small gripsack?"

"Yep. It would hold about as much as a high hat."

Explicit as the information was it led nowhere, apparently. Mr. Birnes readily understood this much, yet there was a chance-a bare chance-that he might trace the girl on the 'L,' in which case-anyway, it was worth trying.

"What did she look like? How was she dressed?" he asked.

"She had on one of them blue tailor-made things with a lid to match, and a long feather in it," the cabby answered obligingly. "She was pretty as a-as a-she was a beaut, Cap, sort of skinny, and had all sorts of hair on her head-brownish, goldish sort of hair. She was about twenty-two or three, maybe, and-and-Cap, she was the goods, that's all."

In the course of a day a thousand women, more or less, answering that description in a general sort of way, ride back and forth on the elevated trains. Mr. Birnes sighed as he remembered this; still it might produce results. Then came another idea.

"Did you happen to look in the cab after the young woman left it?" he inquired.

"No."

"Had any fares since?"

"No."

Mr. Birnes opened the door of the closed cab and glanced in. Perhaps there might be a stray glove, a handkerchief, some more definite clew than this vague description. He scrutinized the inside of the vehicle carefully; there was nothing. Yes, by Jingo, here was something-a white streak under the edge of the cushion on the seat! Mr. Birnes' hopeful fingers fished it out. It was a white envelope, sealed and-and addressed to him!

If you are as clever as I imagine you are, you will find this.

My address is No. -- East Thirty-seventh Street. I shall be

pleased to see you if you will call.

E. VAN CORTLANDT WYNNE.

It was most disconcerting, really.