"Your employer is very kind," said Clara. "This gentleman, Mr. Palovna, will go with me, and if he asks you to do anything, you needn't wait for my consent. We will go straight to the place where you left Patterson. Stop there, and point out the house you think he went into, but don't drive up to it."
When they were in the coupé, Clara continued to Paul:
"I have no definite plan as to Patterson. That must develop when we find him. If he can be cajoled, bribed or frightened into telling us the truth, it must be done. I don't see that we are called upon to make nice discriminations in our methods."
"Any way is fair in dealing with a criminal," returned Paul. "Humph!"
"What is it?" asked Clara, observing that he began to take a lively interest in the street through which they were passing.
"It may be only a coincidence," said Paul, "but it just occurred to me that thus far Mike has taken us over exactly the same course that Poubalov pursued when I followed him last evening."
"I presume it's not a coincidence," responded Clara, and she thought of Litizki's passionate words: "If ever anything is discovered, you discover Poubalov's hand in it."
Step by step the coupé followed Poubalov's line of march, and when it drew up at last, it was at the very corner where Paul had seen the spy talking with the stranger.
Mike got down and opened the door, and as he spoke, Clara looked out in the direction in which he pointed.
"This was where Patterson shook me, miss," he said, "an' I seen him go along down the street an' cross over just below there an' go into a house—that one, I think, with the balcony along the front, the one a gentleman is just comin' out of."