“True enough,” agreed Bob. “What do you propose to do, Ned?”
“This: I’ll sit quietly here. You and Buck get up leisurely, bid me good night and appear to leave. Instead of that, each of you secrete himself somewhere near the bottom of the stairs leading up to this gallery. When the men here get up to leave, I’ll follow the man with the cape muffled around his face, and you boys each take one of the others.”
“But there are four of them and only three of us,” objected Buck.
“That’s all right. I don’t think that the shabby man with the dirty finger nails is anything more than a mere tool anyhow, so we can afford to let him go. You, Bob, shadow the little fat man with the rings, you, Buck, trail the fellow with the big black beard. Follow them around all night if necessary, but make sure that you trace them to their homes finally. We can all meet with Alan at the Ocean Flyer over in the Prater at, say, sunrise by the latest.”
This scheme struck the other boys as feasible and soon Bob and Buck drifted off as arranged, leaving Ned alone at the table. He had sat there, seemingly half asleep, for perhaps ten minutes more, when the four conspirators arose from their table together and started down the stairs. Ned followed slyly at a safe distance, screened by the jostling crowd.
All four men passed out of the place in company, chatted for a minute or two at the street entrance and then parted. The ruffianly looking individual plunged straightway into the nearest alley, after a furtive look behind him. The pudgy man with the wicked pig’s eyes and bejeweled rings took a taxicab at the curb stall and chugged away, followed by Bob in a second taxi. The herculean black-beard, after leisurely lighting a cigar, walked aimlessly a little way down the thoroughfare; paused and felt of his hip pocket as if to make sure that something quite important was still there; and at last he too hailed a taxicab and disappeared, with Buck still in his wake.
The fourth conspirator—he who kept his face so carefully concealed in the collar of his cape—stood thoughtfully in the lighted doorway of the dance hall until all of his companions were gone. Then he glanced with affected nonchalance at the faces in the crowd around him and turning, strolled slowly westward along the street. Ned followed.
At the second square the man suddenly quickened his pace until it was all that Ned could do to keep up with him. At the fifth square, he all at once wheeled about abruptly and stared after him; then plunged into an ill-lighted side street. By the time that Ned got to the corner, the quarry was just turning the next corner, running at top speed.
Ned sprinted after him, turned the corner and found himself again on a brightly-lighted thoroughfare thronged with revelers. The man had vanished into the crowd. Bitter disappointment choked Ned until suddenly he saw his man again, this time on the opposite side of the street, hesitating as if at a loss which way to go. Finally he again turned westward, with Ned keeping closer on his heels this time.
Thus the pursuit went on for more than an hour’s time. Had not the boy been himself a good walker, the man would soon have tired him out. The chase ended at last in what your Viennese calls “Die Innere Stadt,” (The Inner Town) which lies in the heart of the city and is the most aristocratic section. The Hofburg, or Imperial Palace is there, the palaces of many of the nobility, the government offices, the now abandoned foreign legations, the opera house and principal hotels.