*****
What followed was a wild adventure. I had never been to Coney Island. But I seemed to have been born knowing that it was a place dedicated to the people's pleasure. No doubt it was a toss-up which amusement ground to choose. By hazard, we began with Constellation Park; and almost at once came upon traces of Nicky. "A little dumb boy with black eyes, all alone, with plenty of money, and a grin when asked if he were lost?" Oh, yes, he was doing every stunt. We tracked him through peanuts and ice cream, lions' dens and upside-down houses, to the Maze of Mystery.
The name was no misnomer. Hampton Court, and the Labyrinth of Crete itself could have "nothing on it." In a bewildered procession Teano, Jenny and I wandered through streets of mirrors, complicated groves, walled concentric alley ways, with unexpected and disappointing outlets until at last a pair of elf-eyes stared at me from a distant and unreachable surface of glass. I cried out; so did Jenny and Teano, for all of us had had the same glimpse and quickly lost it.
"Nicky," gasped Jenny, just behind my back. "And, oh, Red Joe's got hold of him! It's all up—if we can't get between them. It's Red Joe I stole him back from when we went into the Sisterhood."
I looked back to console her—and she was gone. Teano, too, had suddenly separated from us, whether accidentally or for a purpose, I could not tell. But the maze would have put any rabbit warren to shame. When you thought you were in one place, you found to your astonishment that you were in another, with no visible way of getting out.
Then again, eyes looked at me from a mirror which might be far off or within ten yards. There were mirrors within mirrors, dazzling and endless vistas of mirrors. Child's eyes, mischievous as a squirrel's, met mine, peering from between crowding forms of grown-ups. The man Jenny had spoken of as "Red Joe" (I picked him out by a ferret face and rust-red hair) was trying to push past a fat father of a family, to reach the child in grey. Whether Nicky knew that he was a pawn in a game of chess, who could tell? There was but one thing certain. He was having "the time of his life."
"If I could get him for Jenny, what would Jenny do for me in return?" I asked myself. It might turn out that she could unlock the door that had shut between me and Maida Odell.
A desperate, a selfish desire to beat Red Joe, seized me; but now the mirrors told, if they did not deceive, that glassy depths of distance between us were increasing in space and mystery. Suddenly I reached a turning-point. Nicky was straight ahead. He paused, looked, made ready to dart away like a trout from the hook. But—inspiration ran with my blood.
I pulled a wad of greenbacks from my pocket and smiled. Red Joe had flattened pater familias unmercifully, and was squeezing past. A hand, a thief's hand if I ever saw one, caught at Nicky's collar. But he dipped from under, slipped between a surprised German's legs, and—I grabbed him in my arms.