Ken made one more effort to keep Sandy out of what he believed to be his own problem.
“You’re going to give me a guilt complex,” he said. “If you get frostbite, standing—”
“Frostbite?” Sandy sounded amazed. “In these shoes?” He looked down at the heavy brogues he was putting on. “What are you trying to do? Give me a guilt complex? I agreed when we left that place this morning that I’d go back with you this noon, didn’t I? Do you want me to go skulking around in corners for the rest of my life because I broke a promise?” He stood up. “Are you ready?”
For a moment their eyes met and they both grinned.
“Yes,” Ken said then. “I’m ready.”
The boys reached the building on Ninth Avenue a few minutes before twelve o’clock, just as the first trickle of workers began to emerge on their way to lunch. From a lobby across the street they watched the trickle swell to a steady stream.
Sandy leaned comfortably against a radiator. “Why didn’t we find this spot this morning?” he asked. “This is my idea of comfortable sleuthing. When—” He came swiftly erect. “There he is! Let’s go.”
Barrack was just coming through the doorway, carrying half a dozen small cartons. He paused at a large mailbox designed for packages, standing against the building wall, and began to drop the cartons in, one after the other. The largest proved too big for the opening, and Barrack propped it on top of the mailbox instead. Then, with one package still tucked securely under his arm, he walked the few steps to the corner, and waited for a light. He apparently intended to walk eastward on Thirty-second Street.
“You take him,” Ken said. “I’ll be along in a minute.”
He dashed across the street, between rumbling trucks, and took a swift look at the package Barrack had left outside the box. Then he turned and crossed Ninth Avenue again, in plenty of time to fall in a few steps behind Sandy. Barrack was walking swiftly eastward. Ken whistled a few bars of “Yankee Doodle,” quietly, to let Sandy know he had caught up. Sandy replied with an answering whistle.