I’ve got another appointment in five minutes, so I guess you’d better fade away before my next man appears. And Lacey, just remember, don’t come here unless I send for you. It won’t be good if we’re seen together too much.”

“But suppose I need to report to you. Do I phone?”

“Only at the prescribed times and places. You’ll find a note in your papers. That’s all, Lacey. Meantime, keep that girl you spoke of up your sleeve for an emergency. Good-bye!”

Lacey stole out a side entrance and disappeared into another part of the building, and a group of three were announced and took his place.

Lacey went by a back way to a rooming house and locked himself into his gloomy little room, where he sat down to study the paper Weaver had given him.

The paper was typewritten, largely in code.

For some time Lacey sat studying it, frowning, tapping his finger nervously on the arm of his chair, staring at the words on the paper until they were fairly imprinted on his vision. Then suddenly he was startled by the ringing of his telephone, and he hurried over to his desk to answer it.

“Are you number twenty-three of the troop of investigators?” a strange voice asked.

“Yes,” said Lacey sharply.

“Then the orders are for you to proceed to Main Street between Twelfth and Fourteenth at once, and observe the workers among the water company emergency men. You can see the person under discussion among them, bareheaded, wearing a blue shirt, with light curly hair and blue eyes. Walk slowly, pausing now and then casually to watch the workers, then proceed down the street to Filmore’s Garage, returning five minutes later, walking more briskly and not seeming to notice one laboring man more than another. You will receive another phone call at one thirty. That’s all.”

Lacey took his hat and hastened away.

Lisle Kingsley, walking with her father and mother from Filmore’s Garage, where they had left their car, to her father’s office, half a block farther on, was halted by an obstruction on the sidewalk. There had evidently been a burst water main that had flooded the street, and the men from the water company were working valiantly to open the road and find the broken pipe that had caused the trouble. Some of them were apparently new at the job and not as careful as they should have been to keep the mud and rubble from the sidewalk, flinging dirt and paving blocks and muddy water out of their way and not stopping to see where they landed until large piles had mounted up across the pavement.

Mr. Kingsley stepped out into the road to investigate and ask a few questions, as the obstruction was almost in front of his office. A number of people were hesitating in dismay, gazing anxiously down at their shoes and wondering which was the best way to get across. Traffic had been stopped by the spouting water and its consequent flooding of the street, and the road was pretty well congested with trucks, delivery wagons, and cars. It was also very muddy, as in places the pools were still quite deep, though the water had been turned off for several minutes now.

Just ahead of Mrs. Kingsley and Lisle were a group of irate ladies, one of whom was storming at the men who were working so frantically to put things right.

It was at this moment that Lacey arrived among the crowd.

“I think this is perfectly inexcusable!” said Mrs. Gately, a recently rich woman who had married wealth and intended everyone should understand her importance. “Why can’t you men keep this rubbish off the sidewalk? It could just as well be left in the road. Just look at my dress! All spattered with mud and filth! And it’s an imported dress! Probably the last one I shall ever be able to get from Paris unless this horrid old war stops pretty soon. And they say Paris will be practically destroyed before it does. That is, the old Paris, where all the fashions come from! There! Now you’ve done it again! Flung a lot of slushy mud over my shoes! I think you men ought to be arrested! I shall ask my husband to have your names taken and see that something is done about this. I shall certainly report you to the officials of the water company, and you men will all lose your jobs! Then perhaps you will learn that you can’t obstruct the sidewalk from the garage to the shopping district. I mean what I say! You’ll find out! What’s your name, young man?”

She pointed her beautifully manicured, crimson-tipped forefinger straight at a young man in a light blue shirt, who was shoveling vigorously in the forefront of the workers. He looked up with a quick amused glance.

“Yes, you! You’re the one I mean! You flung that water right on my foot! I saw you! How long have you been working for this water company?”

He gave another quick grin and answered in a clear young voice, “About twenty minutes, madam. They were short of help and this thing was getting ahead of them. They asked me to lend a hand.