“What are you going to do?” asked Larry.
“I’m going to start my investigations from the sign of the blue hand,” replied Mr. Newton.
“Not from the place in Chinatown where you were nearly injured by those men?”
“That’s what I’m going to do. But don’t be alarmed. There’s no one at that place now. The gang moved out soon after I traced them there, and have not been back since. I learned that from some detectives. So there’s no danger in going back there.”
“But what good will it do?”
“It may put me on the track of the gang’s new headquarters. That it is somewhere in Chinatown I’m certain, but to locate it is a harder proposition. I may be able to make friends with someone in the house where the room with the sign of the blue hand on the door is located, and he may be able to tell me where the members of the gang hold out. Once I get a clew the rest will be comparatively easy.”
“Well, I hope you’ll succeed,” spoke Larry. “In the meanwhile I’ll see if I can locate Peter.”
Arranging to meet again late that night at Mr. Newton’s house, Larry and his friend separated. The boy hardly knew where to begin. Without experience in this sort of work, for which Mr. Newton’s training as a newspaper reporter fitted him, Larry thought the only way to do would be to walk about the streets, taking a chance of seeing Peter in the crowds that passed by. He even tried this plan, but he saw that it would be apt to fail, since the chances were so much against him.
“I ought to start at the beginning,” he said. “That is, if I knew where the beginning was.”
Then it occurred to him that the most natural way would be to find out where Peter lived, or had lived, and to go there.