"By George, Walter, what a chump I am!" cried Kennedy, leaping to his feet, all energy again. "Why did I forget that lump of paraffin? Why, of course - I think I can guess what they have been doing - of course. Why, man alive, he walked right past us, and we never knew it. Boy, boy," he shouted to a newsboy who passed, "what's the latest sporting edition you have?"
Eagerly he almost tore a paper open and scanned the sporting pages.
"Racing at Lexington begins to-morrow," he read. "Yes, I'll bet
that's it. We don't have to know the safe deposit vault, after all.
It would be too late, anyhow. Quick, let us look up the train to
Lexington."
As we hurried over to the information booth, I gasped, in a whirl:
"Now, look here, Kennedy, what's all this lightning calculation?
What possible connection is there between a lump of paraffin and
one of the few places in the country where they still race horses?"
"None," he replied, not stopping an instant. "None. The paraffin suggested to me the possible way in which our man managed to elude us under our very eyes. That set my mind at work again. Like a flash it occurred to me: Where would they be most likely to go next to work off some of the bills? The banks are on, the jewellery-houses are on, the gambling-joints are on. Why, to the racetracks, of course. That's it. Counterfeiters all use the bookmakers, only since racing has been killed in New York they have had to resort to other means here. If New York has suddenly become too hot, what more natural than to leave it? Here, let me see - there's a train that gets there early to-morrow, the best train, too. Say, is No. 144 made up yet?" he inquired at the desk.
"No. 144 will be ready in fifteen minutes. Track 8."
Kennedy thanked the man, turned abruptly, and started for the still closed gate at Track 8.
"Beg pardon - why, hulloa - it's Burke," he exclaimed as we ran plump into a man staring vacantly about.
It was not the gentleman farmer of the night before, nor yet the supposed college graduate. This man was a Western rancher; his broad-brimmed hat, long moustache, frock coat, and flowing tie proclaimed it. Yet there was something indefinably familiar about him, too. It was Burke in another disguise.
"Pretty good work, Kennedy," nodded Burke, shifting his tobacco from one side of his jaws to the other. "Now, tell me how your man escaped you this morning, when you can recognise me instantly in this rig."
"You haven't altered your features," explained Kennedy simply. "Our pale-faced, snub-nosed, peculiar-eared friend has. What do you think of the possibility of his going to the Lexington track, now that he finds it too dangerous to remain in New York?"