At the corner below they saw this man pass through a door, which Nick and Chick sized up to be the back door of a drinking saloon.
They let him go, and Nick led the way to the house of the woman on whom Ida had first called.
This was not guesswork. He recalled that he had advised Ida to see that woman immediately on arriving in Philadelphia.
It was with some difficulty that the woman was aroused, and when she was, her means of communication with them was through the window of her bedroom. It did not take long for Nick to learn that Ida had called on her, and that she did not know whither Ida had gone on leaving her.
“The first point is made,” said Nick to Chick, “for we have found that Ida reached here and began work. Now we will follow her up.”
Taking a position under the arc light near by, Nick took from his pocket some papers, and, after examining them, said:
“I fancy we can travel Ida’s course pretty straight for a while. Come along.”
Thus, without delay, they called at each of the next three places Ida had gone to, and in the order that she had, compelled in each instance to arouse people from their beds to answer their questions.
But at the end of this journey they were, to use the words of Chick, “up against it.”
What line Ida had traveled, and to what address she had gone, they had no way of judging.