As Mr. Dinneford stood at the door of this room and inhaled its fetid air, he grew sick, almost faint.  Stepping back, with a shocked and disgusted look on his face, he said to the policeman,

“There must be a mistake.  This cannot be the room.”

Two or three children and a coarse, half-clothed woman, seeing a gentleman going into the house accompanied by a policeman, had followed them closely up stairs.

“Who lives in this room?” asked the policeman, addressing the woman.

“Don’t know as anybody lives there now,” she replied, with evident evasion.

“Who did live here?” demanded the policeman.

“Oh, lots!” returned the woman, curtly.

“I want to know who lived here last,” said the policeman, a little sternly.

“Can’t say—­never keep the run of ’em,” answered the woman, with more indifference than she felt.  “Goin’ and comin’ all the while.  Maybe it was Poll Davis.”

“Had she a baby?”

The woman gave a vulgar laugh as she replied:  “I rather think not.”

“It was Moll Fling,” said one of the children, “and she had a baby.”

“When was she here last?” inquired the policeman.

The woman, unseen by the latter, raised her fist and threatened the child, who did not seem to be in the least afraid of her, for she answered promptly: 

“She went away about an hour ago.”

“And took the baby?”

“Yes.  You see Mr. Paulding was here asking about the baby, and she got scared.”

“Why should that scare her?”

“I don’t know, only it isn’t her baby.”

“How do you know that?”

“’Cause it isn’t—­I know it isn’t.  She’s paid to take care of it.”

“Who by?”

“Pinky Swett.”

“Who’s Pinky Swett?”

“Don’t you know Pinky Swett?” and the child seemed half surprised.

“Where does Pinky Swett live?” asked the policeman.

“She did live next door for a while, but I don’t know where she’s gone.”

Nothing beyond this could be ascertained.  But having learned the names of the women who had possession of the child, the policeman said there would be no difficulty about discovering them.  It might take a little time, but they could not escape the vigilance of the police.

With this assurance, Mr. Dinneford hastened from the polluted air of Grubb’s court, and made his way to the mission in Briar street, in order to have some further conference with Mr. Paulding.

“As I feared,” said the missionary, on learning that the baby could not be found.  “These creatures are as keen of scent as Indians, and know the smallest sign of danger.  It is very plain that there is something wrong—­that these women have no natural right to the child, and that they are not using it to beg with.”

“Do you know a woman called Pinky Swett?” asked the policeman.