“Well?”
“I might put it that Mrs. D——, anxious about Emily, desires information of her whereabouts—”
“Put it any way you like.”
“You had better add,” said I, speaking for the first time, “that you would be willing to pay for information.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Gryce, “add that.”
Mrs. Daniels frowned, but made no objection, and after getting as minute a description as possible of the clothing worn by the girl the night before, we left the house.
CHAPTER IV. THOMPSON’S STORY
“An affair of some mystery,” remarked Mr. Gryce, as we halted at the corner to take a final look at the house and its environs. “Why a girl should choose such a method of descent as that,”—and he pointed to the ladder down which we believed her to have come—“to leave a house of which she had been an inmate for a year, baffles me, I can tell you. If it were not for those marks of blood which betray her track, I would be disinclined to believe any such hare-brained adventure was ever perpetrated by a woman. As it is, what would’nt I give for her photograph. Black hair, black eyes, white face and thin figure! what a description whereby to find a girl in this great city of New York. Ah!” said he with sudden gratification, “here is Mr. Blake again; his appointment must have been a failure. Let us see if his description will be any more definite.” And hurrying towards the advancing figure of that gentleman, he put some questions to him.
Instantly Mr. Blake stopped, looked at him blankly for a moment, then replied in a tone sufficiently loud for me to hear: