The Crevice Part 6

"Only that I've got him on the run. If he knows where our man is, Suraci, he'll go after him in a day or two. Meantime, tell H. B., in case I don't get a chance to let him know, that the securities stunt went, all right, and my end of it is O. K."

The next day, and the following, Pennold did indeed set for the young Italian detective a swift pace. He departed upon long rambles, which started briskly and ended aimlessly; he called upon harmless and tedious acquaintances, from Jamaica to Fordham; he went--apparently and ostentatiously to look for a position as janitor--to many office-buildings in lower Manhattan, which he invariably entered and left by different doors. In the evenings he sat blandly upon his own stoop, smoking and chatting amiably if monosyllabically with his wife and their new-found friend, Alfred Hicks, while his indefatigable shadow glowered apparently unnoticed from the gloom of the ailanthus tree.

On Thursday morning, however, Pennold betook himself leisurely to the nearest subway station, and there the real trial of strength between him and his unseen antagonist began. From the Brooklyn Bridge station he rode to the Grand Central; then with a speed which belied his physical appearance, he raced across the bridge to the downtown platform, and caught a train for Fourteenth Street. There he swiftly turned north to Seventy-second Street--then to the Grand Central, again to Ninety-sixth, and so on, doubling from station to station until finally he felt that he must be entirely secure from pursuit.

He alighted at length at a station far up in the Bronx, and after looking carefully about he started off toward the west, where the mushroom growth of the new city sprang up in rows of rococo brick and stone houses with oases of green fields and open lots between. He turned up a little lane of tiny frame houses, each set in its trim garden, and stopped at the fourth cottage.

With a last furtive backward glance, Pennold mounted the steps and rang the bell nervously. The door was opened from within so suddenly that it seemed as if the man who faced his visitor on the threshold must have been awaiting the summons. He stepped quickly out, shutting the door behind him, and for a short s.p.a.ce the two stood talking in low tones--Pennold eagerly, insistently, the other man evasively, slowly, as if choosing his words with care. He was as erect as Pennold was shambling and stoop-shouldered, and although gray and lined of features, his eyes were clear and more steady, his chin more firm, his whole bearing more elastic and forceful.

He did not invite his visitor to enter, and the colloquy between them was brief. It was significant that they did not shake hands, but parted with a brief though not unfriendly nod. The tall man turned and re-entered his house, closing the door again behind him, while Pennold scuttled away, without a farewell glance. It might have been well had he looked once more over his shoulder, for there, crouching against the veranda rail where he had managed to overhear the last of the conversation, was that short, swarthy figure which had followed so indefatigably on his trail for three days--which had clung to him, closely but unseen, through all his devious journey of that morning.

Suraci had not failed.

He tailed Pennold to his home, then went in person with his report to the great Blaine himself, who heard him through in silence, and then brought his mighty fist down upon his desk with a blow which made the ma.s.sive bronze ink-well quiver.

"That's our man! You've got him, Suraci. Good work! Now wait a little; I want you to take some instructions yourself over to Morrow."

The next day the Pennolds missed the cheery greeting of their new friend, the bank-clerk. Since the acquaintances.h.i.+p had been so recently formed, it was odd that they should have been as deeply concerned over his defection as they were. They said little that evening, but when his absence continued the second day, Pennold himself ambled down to the Brooklyn & Queens Bank and reluctantly deposited twenty dollars, merely for the pleasure of a chat with young Hicks. The latter's cheery face failed to greet him, however, within its portals, and a craftily worded inquiry merely elicited the information that he was no longer connected with that inst.i.tution.

"What do you make of it, Mame?" he asked anxiously of his wife when he reached home. His step was more shambling than ever, and his hands, clutching his hat-brim, trembled more than her gnarled, palsied ones.

"I'll tell you what I think when I've been around to Mrs. Lindsay's this afternoon--to 46 Jefferson Place."

"What're you goin' to do there? You can't ask for him, very well,"

objected her spouse.

"Do?" she retorted tartly. "What would I do in a boarding-house? Look for rooms for us, of course, and inquire about the other lodgers to be sure it's respectable for a decent, middle-aged, married couple. Do you think I'm goin' lookin' for a long-lost son? The life must be gettin' you at last, Wally! Your head ain't what it used to be."

But Mrs. Pennold's vaunted astuteness gained her little knowledge which could be of value to her in their late acquaintance. Mrs.

Lindsay was a beetle-browed, enormously stout old lady, with a stern eye and commanding presence, who looked as if in her younger days she might well have been a police-matron--as indeed she had been. She had two double rooms and a single hall bedroom to show for inspection, and she waxed surprisingly voluble concerning the vacancy of the latter, at the first tentative mention of her other lodgers, by her visitor.

"As nice a young man as ever you'd wish to see, ma'am. I don't have none but the most refined people in my house. Lived with me a year and a half, Mr. Hicks did, except for his vacation--regular as clockwork in his bills, and free and open-handed with his tips to Delia. Of course, he wasn't just what you might call steady in his goings-out and comings-in, but there never was nothin' objectionable in his habits. You know what young men is! He had a fine position in a bank here in Brooklyn, but I don't think the company he kep' was all that it might have been. Kind of flashy and sporty, his friends was, and I guess that's what got him into trouble. For trouble he was in, ma'am, when he paid me yesterday in full even to the shavin' mug which I'd bought for his dresser, and meant him to keep for a present--and picked up bag and baggage and left. I always did think Friday was an unlucky day! He stood in the vestibule and shook both my hands, and there wasn't a dry eye in his head or mine!

"'Mis' Lindsay!' he says to me, just like I'm tellin' it to you. 'Mis'

Lindsay, I can't stay here no longer. I wisht to heavings I could, for you've given me a real home,' he says, 'but I'm not at the bank no more, and I'm going away. I'm in trouble!' he says. 'I needn't tell you where I'm goin' for I ain't got a friend who'll ask after me or care, but I just want to thank you for all your kindness to me, an' to ask you to accept this present, and give this dollar-bill to Delia, when she comes in from the fish-store.'

"This is what he give me as a present, ma'am!" Mrs. Lindsay pointed dramatically to a German silver brooch set with a doubtful garnet, at her throat. "And I was so broke up over it all, that I forgot and give Delia the whole dollar, instead of just a quarter, like I should've done. I s'pose I'd ought to write to his folks, but I don't know where they are. He comes from up-State somewheres, and I never was one to pry in a boarder's letters or bureau-drawers. I'm just worried sick about it all!"

Mrs. Lindsay would have made a superb actress.

When the interview was at an end and Mrs. Pennold had rejoined her husband, they discussed the disappearance of Alfred Hicks from every standpoint and came finally to the conclusion that the young bank-clerk's sporting proclivities had brought him to ruin.

Meanwhile, in a modest cottage in Meadow Lane, in the Bronx, a small card reading "Room to Let" had been removed from the bay window, and just behind its curtains a young man sat, his eyes fastened upon the house across the way--the fourth from the end of the line. He was a tall, dark young man with a smooth face and firm-set jaw, and his new land-lady knew him as Guy Morrow.

All at once, as he sat watching, the door of the cottage opened, and a girl came out. There was nothing remarkable about her; she was quite a common type of girl: slender, not too tall, with a wealth of red-brown hair and soft hazel eyes; yet there was something about her which made Guy Morrow catch his breath; and throwing caution to the winds, he parted the curtains and leaned forward, looking down upon her. As she reached the gate, his gaze drew hers, and she lifted her gentle eyes and looked into his.

Then her lids drooped swiftly; a faint flush tinged her delicate face, and with lowered head she walked quickly on.

Guy Morrow sank back in his chair, and after the warm glow which had surged up so suddenly within him, a chill crept about his heart. What could that slender, brown-haired, clear-eyed girl be to the man he had been sent to spy upon--to Jimmy Brunell, the forger?

CHAPTER V

THE WILL

Henry Blaine sat in his office, leisurely turning over the pages of a morning newspaper; his att.i.tude was one of apparent idleness, but the occasional swift glances he darted at the clock and a slight lifting of his eyebrows at the least sound from without betokened the fact that he was waiting for some one or something.

His eyes scanned the columns of each page with seeming carelessness, yet their keen glances missed not one significant phrase. And suddenly his gaze was transfixed by a paragraph tucked away in a corner of the second page.

It was merely an account of trouble between capital and labor in a distant manufacturing city, and a hint of an organized strike which threatened for the immediate future. The great detective was not at all a politician, and the social and economic conditions of the day held no greater import for him than for any other conscientious, far-seeing citizen of the country, yet he sat for a long moment with wrinkled brow and pursed lips, musing, while the newspaper dropped unheeded upon the desk.

His reverie was suddenly interrupted by the sharp, insistent tinkling of the telephone; a clear, girlish voice came to him over the wire:

"Is this Grosvenor 0760? This is Miss Lawton speaking. An alteration must be made at once in that last gown you sent me, and it is imperative that I see you in person concerning it. It will be inconvenient for me to have you come here this morning. Where shall I see you? At your establishment or--"

She paused suggestively, and he replied with a hurried question.

"It is absolutely necessary, Miss Lawton, that you see me in person?

You are quite sure?"

"Absolutely." Her voice held a ring of earnestness and something more which caused him to jump to a lightning-like decision.

"Very well. I will meet you in twenty minutes at your Working Girls'

Club. I am an architect, remember, and you wish to build a new and more improved inst.i.tution of the same order on another site.

Therefore, you have met me there to show me over the old building and suggest changes in its plans for the new one. You understand, Miss Lawton? My name is Banks, remember, and--be a few minutes late."

"I understand perfectly. Thank you. Good-by."

The receiver at the other end of the line clicked abruptly, and the detective sprang to his feet.

A quarter of an hour later Blaine presented himself at the Anita Lawton Club, where a trim maid ushered him into a tiny office. There, behind the desk, sat a girl, and at sight of her, the detective, master of himself as he was, gave an imperceptible start.

There was nothing remarkable about her; she was quite a common type of girl: slender, not too tall, with a wealth of red-brown hair, and soft hazel eyes; yet she reminded Blaine vaguely but insistently of some one else--some one whom he had encountered in the past.

He recovered himself at once, and presented the card which announced him as the senior member of the firm of Banks and Frost, architects.

"Whom did you wish to see, sir?" The girl turned slowly about in her swivel chair and regarded him respectfully but coolly. Her voice was low and gentle and distinctly feminine, yet it brought to him again that haunting sense of resemblance which the first vision of her had caused.

"Miss Lawton," he replied, quietly.

"But Miss Lawton is not here." The girl's surprise was unfeigned.

"I have an appointment to meet her here at this time. She may perhaps have been detained. She has arranged to go over the club building with me. As you see by my card, I am an architect and she is planning more extensive work, I believe, along the lines inst.i.tuted here--at least that is the impression she has given my firm. I will wait a short time, if I may. You are connected with the official work of the club?"

"I am the secretary." The girl paused and then added, "I understand perfectly, sir. Will you be seated, please? Miss Lawton had not told me of her appointment here with you. She will without doubt arrive shortly."