“This is Mr. Horan, the section boss,” she explained.
Mr. Horan shook hands.
“Say, I’ve heard of you, Mr. Quest,” he announced. “The young lady tells me you are some interested in that prisoner they lost off the cars near here.”
“That’s so,” Quest admitted. “We’d like to go to the spot if we could.”
“That’s dead easy,” the boss replied. “I’ll take you along in the hand car. I’ve been expecting you, Mr. Quest, some time ago.”
“How’s that?” the criminologist asked.
Mr. Horan expelled a fragment of chewing tobacco and held out his hand for the cigar which Quest was offering.
“They’ve been going the wrong way to work, these New York police,” he declared. “Just because there was a train on the other track moving slowly, they got it into their heads that Macdougal had boarded it and was back in New York somewhere. That ain’t my theory. If I were looking for James Macdougal, I’d search the hillsides there. I’ll show you what I mean when we get alongside.”
“You may be right,” Quest admitted. “Anyway, we’ll start on the job.”
The section boss turned around and whistled. From a little side track two men jumped on to a hand-car, and brought it round to where they were standing. A few yards away, the man who was propelling it—a great red-headed Irishman—suddenly ceased his efforts. Leaning over his pole, he gazed at Quest. A sudden ferocity darkened his coarse face. He gripped his mate by the arm.