"You see, as I dope it out, she's accustomed to sit in Miss Van Allen's boodore a-sewin' an' might have overheard some gossip or sumpum like that, an' Miss Van Allen was afraid she'd scatter it, an' so she sent Julie to shut her up. I don't believe the woman knows where Miss Van is now."
"I must see her," said Stone.
"Yes, sir. She won't get away. She's a regular citizen, an' respectable at that. Well, then, the laundress. To her also Julie had likewise went. An' to her also Julie had passed the spondulicks. Now, I don't understand that so well, for laundresses don't overhear the ladies talkin', but, anyway, Julie told her if she wouldn't answer a question to anybody, she'd give her half a century, too. And did."
"Doubtless the laundress knew something Miss Van Allen wants kept secret."
"Doubtless, sir," said Fibsy, gravely.
"But I don't believe," mused Stone, "that it would help us any to learn all those women know. If Miss Van Allen thought they could help us find her, she would give them more than that for silence or get them out of the city altogether."
"Where is Miss Van Allen, Mr. Stone?"
Fibsy asked the question casually, as one expectant of an answer.
"She's in the city, Fibs, living as somebody else."
"Yep, that's so. Over on the West side, say, among the artist lady's studio gang?"