False
trail here--clue breaks there--scent fails here, but at
last--a joyful cry from Will Search:--
"Here you are! Insufficient address. November 1.
Queenstown letter--`Linwood, to John McLaughlin. Try
Dorchester. Try Roxbury. Try East Boston. Try
Somerville'-- and there it stops, and was not returned."
"Try Somerville!"
In these words great light fell over the eager
circle. Not because Somerville is the seat of an insane
hospital. No! But because it is not in the Boston
Directory.
If you please, Somerville is an independent city, and
so, unless John McLaughlin worked in Boston, if he lived
in Somerville, he would not be in the Boston Directory.
Not much! Somerville has its own seven John
McLaughlins besides those Boston ones.
"I say, Harry, Tom, Dick--somebody fetch Somerville
Directory!"
Dick flew and returned with the book.
"Here you be! `John McLaughlin, laborer, 99 Linwood
Street!
"Victory!"
Satan's forces tremble, and as the different officers
return to their desks "even the ranks of Tuscany" in that
well-bred office "can scarce forbear to cheer."
As for Harrington, he bids good-by, wraps his tartan
around him, and is out in the snow again. Where Linwood
Street is he "knows no more than the dead." But somebody
will know.
Somerville car. Draw of bridge open. Man falls into
the river and has to be rescued.
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