"Gee! I'm glad!" blurted the boy. "Now I can say what I really think. She's just horrid! I shouldn't shed a tear if we never found her, and that's a fact."
"So there is one load off your mind," observed the old detective.
"Yes, but why didn't my father tell me?" demanded Ed.
"He had sworn to your mother never to tell you. He instructs me to tell you, so that, in a way, he may not break his word."
"Poor pop," sighed Ed. "He certainly has a hard time of it. But what about Ethel? Is she here in Chinatown, as you supposed?"
"I believe such to be the case. My partner, Miss Montgomery, who has been working for three days on the matter, is to report to us to-night. Disguised as a Chinese woman, she has been in a certain place where she expected to get information, and I have no doubt has done so by this time. We shall soon see her, and then you will know."
"Am I to go along?"
"Yes, by your father's particular request. He says this is the first time you have been to New York. He wants you to learn something of the city and its peculiar ways."
"All right. I have seen enough of it already to make me think that I never want to see it again."
"You decide hastily. If you have come directly from the Grand Central station, as I suppose——"