“I’ll show you,” answered Jack.

He showed the way upstairs.

“How did you get out?” he asked Foley, as he touched the spring, and the secret door flew open.

“Curse you!” exclaimed Foley, darting a look of hatred and malignity at him.  “I wish I had you in my power once more.  I treated you too well.”

We need not follow the police in their search.  The discoveries which they made were ample to secure the conviction of the gang who made this house the place of their operations.  To anticipate a little, we may say that Foley was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of years, and his subordinates to a term less prolonged.  The reader will also be glad to know that to our hero was awarded the prize of a thousand dollars which had been offered for the apprehension of the gang of counterfeiters.

But there was another notable capture made that day.

Mrs. Hardwick was accustomed to make visits to Foley to secure false bills, and to make settlement for what she had succeeded in passing off.

While Jack and the officers were in the house she rang the door bell.

Jack went to the door.

“How is this?” she asked.

“Oh,” said Jack, “it’s all right.  Come in.  I’ve gone into the business, too.”

Mrs. Hardwick entered.  No sooner was she inside than Jack closed the door.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, suspiciously.  “Let me out.”

But Jack was standing with his back to the door.  The door to the right opened, and a policeman appeared.

“Arrest this woman,” said Jack.  “She’s one of them.”

“I suppose I must yield,” said Peg, sulkily; “but you shan’t be a gainer by it,” she continued, addressing Jack.

“Where is Ida?” asked our hero, anxiously.

“She is safe,” said Peg, sententiously.

“You won’t tell me where she is?”

“No; why should I?  I suppose I am indebted to you for this arrest.  She shall be kept out of your way as long as I have power to do so.”

“Then I shall find her,” said Jack.  “She is somewhere in the city, and I’ll find her sooner or later.”

Peg was not one to betray her feelings, but this arrest was a great disappointment to her.  It interfered with a plan she had of making a large sum out of Ida.  To understand what this was, we must go back a day or two, and introduce a new character.

CHAPTER XXXI

MR. JOHN SOMERVILLE

Jack’s appearance on the scene had set Mrs. Hardwick to thinking.  This was the substance of her reflections:  Ida, whom she had kidnaped for certain reasons of her own, was likely to prove an incumbrance rather than a source of profit.  The child, her suspicions awakened in regard to the character of the money she had been employed to pass off, was no longer available for that purpose.

Under these circumstances Peg bethought herself of the ultimate object which she had proposed to herself in kidnaping Ida—­that of extorting money from a man who has not hitherto figured in our story.