I was wondering how Kennedy was going to get into Albano’s again without exciting suspicion.  He solved it neatly.

“Now, Walter, do you think you could stand another dip into that red ink of Albano’s!”

I said I might in the interests of science and justice—­not otherwise.

“Well, your face is sufficiently dirty,” he commented, “so that with the overalls you don’t look very much as you did the first time you went in.  I don’t think they will recognise you.  Do I look pretty good?”

“You look like a coal-heaver out of a job,” I said.  “I can scarcely restrain my admiration.”

“All right.  Then take this little glass bottle.  Go into the back room and order something cheap, in keeping with your looks.  Then when you are all alone break the bottle.  It is full of gas drippings.  Your nose will dictate what to do next.  Just tell the proprietor you saw the gas company’s wagon on the next block and come up here and tell me.”

I entered.  There was a sinister-looking man, with a sort of unscrupulous intelligence, writing at a table.  As he wrote and puffed at his cigar, I noticed a scar on his face, a deep furrow running from the lobe of his ear to his mouth.  That, I knew, was a brand set upon him by the Camorra.  I sat and smoked and sipped slowly for several minutes, cursing him inwardly more for his presence than for his evident look of the “mala vita.”  At last he went out to ask the barkeeper for a stamp.

Quickly I tiptoed over to another corner of the room and ground the little bottle under my heel.  Then I resumed my seat.  The odour that pervaded the room was sickening.

The sinister-looking man with the scar came in again and sniffed.  I sniffed.  Then the proprietor came in and sniffed.

“Say,” I said in the toughest voice I could assume, “you got a leak.  Wait.  I seen the gas company wagon on the next block when I came in.  I’ll get the man.”

I dashed out and hurried up the street to the place where Kennedy was waiting impatiently.  Rattling his tools, he followed me with apparent reluctance.

As he entered the wine-shop he snorted, after the manner of gas-men, “Where’s de leak?”

“You find-a da leak,” grunted Albano.  “What-a you get-a you pay for?  You want-a me do your work?”

“Well, half a dozen o’ you wops get out o’ here, that’s all.  D’youse all wanter be blown ter pieces wid dem pipes and cigarettes?  Clear out,” growled Kennedy.

They retreated precipitately, and Craig hastily opened his bag of tools.

“Quick, Walter, shut the door and hold it,” exclaimed Craig, working rapidly.  He unwrapped a little package and took out a round, flat disc-like thing of black vulcanised rubber.  Jumping up on a table, he fixed it to the top of the reflector over the gas-jet.

“Can you see that from the floor, Walter?” he asked under his breath.