Billy Kane had reached the Bowery now. He went in through the side entrance of a corner saloon. Here, a minute’s search in the telephone directory supplied him with the number of Dayler’s house on Ninth Street. After that, he made his way over to Washington Square, crossed the Square, gained the lower end of Fifth Avenue, practically deserted now at this hour, and, a moment later, turning into Ninth Street, headed down the block in the direction of Sixth Avenue.
It was one of the old aristocratic neighborhoods of New York, but changed now a great deal with the changing years. What had once been classed as mansions had in many cases been metamorphosed into lodging and boarding houses; but the “mansions” were still here, big, substantial, commodious stone dwellings. Nor had the boarding houses entirely ousted a certain unobtrusive type of wealth and means from their midst, and it argued not at all that this Dayler, for instance, because he had his residence here, was not well to do, even exceedingly well to do.
The street was quiet. Billy Kane located the house he sought. He passed by it, noting that it had a basement entrance, a flight of stone steps to the front door, that it was entirely in darkness, and, returning, he mounted the steps quietly and without any attempt at concealment, found the outer vestibule door unlocked, opened it—after making pretense of ringing the doorbell for the benefit of anyone on the street who might have paid him any notice—stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. The inner door was locked. His skeleton keys came into play. Still far from an adept in their use, he was several minutes at this work. Then he stepped forward into the hall of the house itself.
His flashlight stabbed a lane of light through the darkness. The stairs leading to the upper floors of the house were ahead of him and on his right; on his left, opening off the hall, which seemed to run almost the depth of the house, were several doors, all of which were closed. The house was empty, the cipher message had assured him of that, but nevertheless he moved now with extreme caution to the first door on his left. He knew nothing of the plan of the house, but it was at least logical to assume that the library was on this floor, and the library was the objective of his search.