Page:The Master of Mysteries (1912).djvu/537

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BLACK LIGHT
473

drew them out, one by one. Three were blank. On the fourth she found the following:

"St. Patrick's Cath. . . . . . . 115 10th-Ave.
Pier 83 N. R. . . . . . . . . . 320 3d-Ave."

She gave a little cry of triumph. Here at last was something to work on! She considered the addresses carefully. What did they mean? Astro had never mentioned such places; yet the notes were in his crabbed handwriting. She knew of a certainty that the studio had been cleaned the day before yesterday. This writing, then, must have been put into the basket after they had had their talk. If so, then they meant something. The first thing to do was, of course, to look up these localities and see what she could find there. Saint Patrick's Cathedral and the Pier 83 seemed unlikely places to discover news of Astro's whereabouts; but she determined to visit all four before she returned.

She called a taxicab and set out first for Pier 83. This, she found, was at the end of the Forty-second-Street side of the Weehawken ferry. She walked along the wharf, and found a tug laid up there. Besides this, there was no sign of life. What should she do? Ask the tugboat men if they knew where Astro was? That was nonsense! She walked up and down for a half-hour, and discovered nothing which she could possibly twist into evidence. She decided, then, that she would visit the other places, and then, if she found nothing suspicious, return over the ground again.

Saint Patrick's Cathedral next. There it stood, on the corner of the avenue, and she recalled how Astro