What made me catch my breath, however, was the fact that the figure was that of a man, and the man was Latreille, my ex-chauffeur. And still again, I remembered, the long arm of Coincidence was reaching out and plucking me by the sleeve.
But I didn't linger there to meditate over this abstraction, for I noticed that Latreille, sauntering along the opposite side of the street, had signaled to two other men leisurely approaching my caravansary from the near-by corner. One of these, I saw, was the old man known as Crotty. And it was obvious that within two minutes' time they would converge somewhere disagreeably close to the spot where I stood.
So I backed discreetly and quietly through the side-entrance of that many-odored beer-parlor. There I encountered an Hibernian bartender with an empty tray and an exceptionally evil eye. I detained him, however, with a fraternal hand on his sleeve.
"Sister," I hurriedly explained, "I've got a date with a rib here. Can you put me under cover?"
It was patois, I felt sure, which would reach his understanding. But it wasn't until he beheld the five-spot which I'd slid up on his tray that the look of world-weary cynicism vanished from his face.
"Sure," he said as he promptly and impassively pocketed the bill. Then without a word or the blink of an eye he pushed in past a room crowded with round tables on iron pedestals, took the key out of a door opening in the rear wall, thrust it into my fingers, and offhandedly motioned me inside.
I stepped in through that door and closed and locked it. Then I inspected my quarters. They were eloquent enough of sordid and ugly adventure. They smelt of sour liquor and stale cigar-smoke, with a vague over-tone of orris and patchouli. On one side of the room was an imitation Turkish couch, on the other an untidy washstand and a charred-edged card-table. Half-way between these there was a "speak-easy," a small sliding wall-panel through which liquid refreshments might be served without any undue interruption to the privacy of those partaking of the same. This speak-easy, I noticed as I slid it back the merest trifle, opened on the "beer parlor," at the immediate rear of the bar-room itself, the "parlor" where the thirsty guest might sit at one of the little round tables and consume his "suds" or his fusel-oil whisky at his leisure. And the whole place impressed me as the sort of thing that still made civilization a mockery and suburban recreation a viper that crawled on its belly.
I was, in fact, still peering through my little speak-easy slit in the wall when I became conscious of the three figures that came sidling into that empty room with the little round tables. I could see them distinctly. There was the silvery-haired old Crotty; there was Latreille; and there was a rather unkempt and furtive-eyed individual who very promptly and unmistakably impressed me as a drug-addict. And repugnant as eavesdropping was to me, I couldn't help leaning close to my speak-easy crevice and listening to that worthy trio as they seated themselves within six feet of where I stood, Latreille and old Crotty with their backs to me, the untidy individual whom they addressed as The Doc sitting facing the wall that shielded me.
"Swell kipping!" contentedly murmured one of that trio, out of their momentary silence. And at that I promptly pricked up my ears, for I knew that swell kipping in the vernacular of the underworld stood for easy harvesting.
"What'll it be, boys?" interrupted a voice which I recognized as the bartender's.