In bits and snatches, interrupted by contributions from the others and by the process of piling three adults and what proved to be only three children into the taxi, we learned that the boy on the fire-escape duty had heard a noise from the apartment hall-way just a little before eleven o'clock. Looking in, he had seen a man bent over the lock of the Hammett door, and behind him a woman, looking up and down the hall-way nervously. It had taken the man several minutes to breach the lock (this was imparted with scorn, and the aside that the lad telling this part of the story had an uncle who could have done it in half the time). They had been inside the apartment just a few minutes, and come out with the woman slipping something into her hand-bag. They had pulled the door to behind them, and left in a hurry.

Master Garcia and seven of his boys had been arrayed in wait. They followed as far as Market Street and saw the two turn west; Garcia had then divided his troops: two with him to summon help, the others to follow their quarry.

The lad paused in his story to look at Holmes with wrinkled brow. “I shoulda asked—do you got any two-bits with you?”

“Yes, I have some quarter-dollars. Why?”

“It's just that I told my guys that, if them two make too many turns, we're gonna run out of boys, and they should ask someone who looks like they can use two bits to stand on the corner and let us know which way they've gone. So you might have to hand quarters out to a few bums.”

We all three looked at him with respect, and he blushed for a moment before throwing back his head with a cocky expression. “Only makes sense,” he asserted.

“How very true,” Holmes said. “And when we're through with this, you might talk to Mr Hammett here about local employment opportunities for promising lads.”