Clancy turned off the light, passed to the window, raised the shade, and then the sash, and softly climbed through and dropped to the ground. By a roundabout course he gained First Avenue, went by the front of the garage on the opposite side of the street, and so came into the main thoroughfare of the town.
Clancy did not intend to be gone long for he believed that he could discover all he wanted to know in a very few minutes. He was longer in his quest, however, than he had supposed he would be.
He went into a hotel across from the courthouse plaza, and approached the desk in the lobby. Eleven o’clock was just chiming from the courthouse bell.
The night clerk, after surveying Clancy rather uncertainly, pushed the register around and handed him a pen.
“No,” said the youth, “I’m not going to put up here. All I want is a little information.”
“Fire away,” said the clerk.
“Can you tell me who lives at the corner of Second Avenue and Cerro Gordo Street?”
“Hanged if I can! I haven’t been here long, and don’t know this town very well. Why don’t you go to the place and find out?”
Clancy didn’t care to do that, and carried his search farther. Place after place was visited fruitlessly, until it seemed that the only way for him to learn what he wanted to know was by really going to the house and making his inquiries on the spot. At last, however, he found himself in the same restaurant where he had taken supper, and the cashier gave him the required information.
“Cerro Gordo and Second?” repeated the cashier. “That’s easy. Judge Pembroke lives there and—— What’s the matter with you?”