A MILLIONAIRE POLICEMAN ON PATROL.
Travers Gladwin went bounding down the steps of his own pretentious marble dwelling with an airy buoyancy that would have caused Sergt. McGinnis to turn mental back handsprings had he happened to be going by on his rounds. But, fortunately, McGinnis had passed on his inspection tour shortly before Michael Phelan had been summoned by Bateato. For three hours at least Officer 666 would be supreme on his beat.
While the McGinnis contingency had never entered young Gladwin’s mind it did suddenly occur to him as he strolled jauntily along that he had neglected to ask Phelan to define the circumscribed limits of his post. What if he should happen to butt into another patrolman? Certain exposure and all his plans would go flui! Then there was the danger of being recognized by some of his neighbors and friends. Ah! it came to him in a twinkling. A disguise!
“Here goes,” he said aloud. “I’ll jump a taxi and see if I can hunt up a hair store!”
The time was 7 P. M., with the inky darkness of night blanketing the city so far as inky darkness can blanket a metropolis.
The thoroughfare on which the young man stood was a long lane of dazzle, wherefore the nocturnal shadows offered no concealment. He cast his eyes up and down the avenue in search of a tramp motor-hack cruising in search of a fare. He had only a moment or two to wait before one of the bright yellow variety came racketing along. He stuck up his hand and waved his baton at the driver. There was a crunching of brakes and the taxi hove to and warped into the curb. The chauffeur had the countenance of a pirate, but his grin was rather reassuring.
“Say, me friend,” began the young man, in an effort to assume Michael Phelan’s brogue, “do you know the way to a hair store?”
“A what?” the chauffeur shot back, while his grin went inside.
“A hair store––I want a bit of a disguise fer my features––whiskers, false hair or the like.”