Traile nodded, and Stacey set off. He drove the car slowly along the avenue until he sighted a policeman, then drew up beside him.
“Where’s Dodge Street, please?” he asked. “And where would eight-sixteen be?”
The officer explained carefully, and Stacey drove on. It was a long way to the street he sought, but he reached it at last and found the number—a boarding-house in the section near the railway.
“Is James Monahan in?” he asked the woman who answered the ring.
“Hall bedroom on the third floor,” she replied, looking suspiciously at his uniform. “I don’t know if he’s in.”
Stacey went up the stairs and knocked at the door. There was a kind of growl from inside that might have been meant for: “Come in”; so Stacey entered the room.
CHAPTER XII
It was a small bare room, at the other end of which, beside the bed, an enormous red-haired Irishman stood like a herculean statue. He was bent forward in a half-crouching attitude and held menacingly at shoulder height, grasped in both hands, a chair, with the obvious intention of hurling it at the intruder.
Stacey involuntarily started. Then a gleam of appreciation came into his eye. The man’s attitude was magnificent. Rodin might have posed him.
“Well, upon my word, Monahan,” he said easily, “you give a fellow a cordial reception!” And he dropped into a chair—the only other one in the room.