“An odd coincidence,” muttered Orme. “I hope it wasn’t mind-reading.” And he smiled as he drew a mouthful of smoke.
Lincoln Park slid by them on the left. The car was getting well down into the city. Suddenly Maku worked along to the end of his seat and got down on the running-board. The conductor pulled the bell. The car stopped and the Oriental jumped off.
The action had been so quick that Orme, taken off his guard, had not had time to get off first. He, therefore, remained on the car, which began to move forward again. Looking after Maku, he saw that the Japanese, glancing neither to right nor to left, was making off down the side street, going west; so he in turn stepped to the street, just as Maku disappeared beyond the corner. He hurried quickly to the side street and saw Maku, half a block ahead, walking with short, rapid steps. How had Maku got so far? He must have run while Orme was retracing the way to the corner. And yet Maku seemed to have had no suspicion that he was being followed.
The chase led quickly to a district of poor houses and shops—an ill-looking, ill-smelling district, where every shadow seemed ominous. Whenever they approached a corner, Orme hurried forward, running on his toes, to shorten the distance in the event that Maku turned, but the course continued straight until Orme began to wonder whether they were not getting near to the river, one branch of which, he knew, ran north through the city.
At last Maku turned into an alley, which cut through the middle of a block. This was something which Orme had not expected. He ran forward and peered down the dark, unpleasant passage. There was his man, barely visible, picking a careful way through the ash-heaps and avoiding the pestilential garbage-cans.
Orme followed, and when Maku turned west again at the next street, swung rapidly after him and around the corner, with the full expectation of seeing him hurrying along, half a block away. But no one was in sight. Had he slipped into one of the near-by buildings?
While Orme was puzzling, a voice at his elbow said, “Hello!”
He turned with a start. Flattened in a shadowed niche of the wall beside him was Maku!
“Hello!” the Japanese said again.
“Well?” exclaimed Orme sharply, trying to make the best of the situation.