Hoboken would'nt be a bad place to send Schmidt to." "You forget what it is they've got on their minds; besides no conspicuous party such as they could live in a rural district without attracting more attention than in the most crowded tenement house in the city." "Where do you think, then, they would be liable to go ?" "Well my most matured thought on the subject," returned Mr.Gryce, after a moment's deliberation, "is this,--you say, and I agree, that they have hampered themselves with this woman at this time for the purpose of using her hereafter in a scheme of black-mail upon Mr.Blake.He, then, must be the object about which their thoughts revolve and toward which whatever operations or plans they may be engaged upon must tend.

What follows?
When a company of men have made up their minds to rob a bank, what is the first thing they do?
They hire, if possible, a house next to the especial building they intend to enter, and for months work upon the secret passage through which they hope to reach the safe and its contents; or they make friends with the watchman that guards its treasures, and the janitor who opens and shuts the doors.

In short they hang about their prey before they pounce upon it.

And so will these Schoenmakers do in the somewhat different robbery which they plan sooner or later to effect.

Whatever may keep them close at this moment, Mr.
Blake and Mr.Blake's house is the point toward which their eyes are turned, and if we had time--" "But we have'nt," I broke in impetuously.