And right at that minute, Flynn, with low chuckles of laughter, was telling Mrs. Flynn of the extraordinary adventure of the afternoon.
"We didn't have nothin' on the young guy at all till we seen him look over at us scared-like, and he tuck to his heels."
It was a cozy scene—Flynn, in his shirt sleeves and slippers, smoking his pipe in the dining-room of a Harlem apartment, while his wife, a plump, pretty woman, was putting away the spoons and forks in the drawer of the yellow-oak sideboard. The noisy Flynn children being packed off to bed, the father could unbend and become confidential.
"It's about three weeks now since Jackman put me wise to money leakin' from Collingham & Law's, and we couldn't tell where the hole was. First we'd size up one fella, and then another; but we'd say it couldn't be him or him. We looked over this young Follett with the rest, but only with the rest, and found but wan thing ag'in' him."
"Didn't he lose his father a short while back?"
"Yes; and that was what made us think of him. Old Follett was fired from the bank eight or nine months ago, and yet the family had gone on livin' very much as they always done."
"That'd be to their credit, wouldn't it?" Mrs. Flynn suggested, kindly.
"It'd be to some one's credit; and the thing we wanted to know was if it was to Collingham & Law's. But we hadn't a thing on him. We found out he'd paid for the old man's funeral, and the grave, and all that; but whether old Follett had left a little wad or whether the young guy'd found it lyin' around loose, we couldn't make out at all. And then this afternoon, as Jackman and me was talkin' it over on the other side o' Broad Street, who should come out but me little lord! Well, wan look give the whole show away. The third degree couldn't ha' been neater. The very eyes of him when he seen us on the other side o' the street says, 'My God! they've got me!' So off he goes—and off we goes—up Broad Street—into Wall Street—across to Nassau Street—up Nassau Street—round the corner into John Street—up to Broadway—over Broadway—and then we lost him. But we've done the trick. To-morrow, when he comes to the bank, we'll have him on the grill. Sooner or later he'd ha' been on the grill, anyhow."
"But suppose he doesn't come?"