“N-E-U-E-N?” said the captain, reading aloud from his notebook.

With that, there came a sudden outburst from the doorway. “Neuendorf!” cried a female voice.

The five of us within the room—Crockett, the police captain, his two subordinates, and I—turned as one man toward the source of this unexpected and mysterious exclamation. There, at the head of the onlookers, stood a slender young woman, who—to judge by her state of careless dishabille—was evidently a lodger unceremoniously prodded from her sleep by the morning’s commotion. The stricken cast of her features, no less than the pallid hue of her skin, offered ample evidence of her extreme emotional distress.

“Come ag’in?” inquired Crockett of the young lady.

“Neuendorf,” she repeated, her voice quavering with agitation. “Hans Neuendorf. That must be his name upon the wall.”

“And precisely who is this individual?” inquired the captain, rapidly inscribing the name inside his notebook.

“A reliable handyman when sober, but a bully and ruffian when under the influence of alcohol,” she responded. “Mrs. Macready employed him on occasion because he worked so cheaply and she, poor woman, has been so burdened with financial care since the death of her husband. Last week, however, the two of them became embroiled in a bitter argument over a sum of money he insisted that she owed him for an earlier job. I was reposing in my chamber next door, recovering from a sick headache, when I overheard their altercation. When Mrs. Macready refused to accede to his claim, he threatened to return and ‘get what was coming to him’ Judging from the uneven quality of his speech at the time, I assumed that he was drunk, so I did not take his threat seriously—nor did Mrs. Macready. But now …” And here the poor creature’s voice became so unsteady that she could no longer continue. Burying her face in her hands, she dissolved into helpless tears.

“Can you tell us,” the police captain inquired softly but urgently, “where we can find this Neuendorf?”

Suddenly, the young officer standing beside him spoke up. “I believe I know the man, Captain Russell.”

“Yes?” the latter said sharply, swivelling towards his subordinate.

“He is a ‘tough customer,’ all right. Lives in a rundown shanty on the harbor. Not more than one year ago, I had occasion to arrest him on a charge of drunken assault. He did not submit without a fight. Indeed, it took four of us, including Sergeant Calhoun—who, as you know, is an individual of no inconsiderable size—to subdue him.”

While this exchange was taking place between the two officers, I turned back to the wall and resumed my inspection of the bloody letters« Crocked:, observing me in this endeavor, addressed me thusly: “What do you say, Cricket? Think them letters spell out this-here Neuendorf’s name?”