The brief-case containing the trousers of David Prentiss had not left Hobart Hitchin's cold hand. It did not leave now as, snatching a hat, he sped down the back stairs of the Lasande—a proceeding likely to save five seconds at least when one considered the slow response of the elevators—cut through the second floor and came down to the side entrance, just beyond the office and the desk.
There was a taxicab as usual at the curb just here. Without leaving the vestibule, Hobart Hitchin signaled it to wait for him; and then, ever so charily, he thrust forward his eagle eyes and directed their merciless beam through the side panel of the glass. Hobart Hitchin all but lost his self-control and laughed excitedly, for there, just down the block, Anthony's personal servant was lugging a wardrobe trunk to the curb.
Ah! And he planned to use the safer taxicab, apparently, rather than the truck; and it seemed to Hobart Hitchin that the driver knew his full errand and demanded his share in advance, because Wilkins handed him money. After that, without effort, because David Prentiss had been light and slender in life, Wilkins took his ghastly burden into the back of the cab and drove away.
But Hobart Hitchin, the relentless, was just twenty yards behind, and his driver, spurred by a ten-dollar bill, bent forward and watched every turn of the wheels as he followed. Thus they left the region of the Lasande—and since we all have our personal dreams, it was right enough for Hobart Hitchin to sit back and indulge his own.
As a millionaire now and then makes himself part and parcel of the local fire-department, following faithfully to every blaze, answering every alarm, so Hobart Hitchin, with a patrimony that rendered real work absurd, dreamed of the day when he should be recognized as the most eminent private expert in crime these great United States have ever held.
Mistily, he had been able time and time again to visualize himself, spectacles and all, surrounded by perturbed policemen who had come to the end of their rope in crime detection, who listened respectfully while he expounded the elements of the particular case in hand. But the mists were almost gone now; this brilliant morning, for the very first time, Hobart Hitchin had picked off a live one.
Yes, and it grew more and more live every second, for instead of heading downtown, and trying—as Hobart Hitchin had fully expected—to ship the trunk by express to some out-of-town point, Wilkins had made his way to West End Avenue!
This in itself was very curious; it did not even suggest that Wilkins was headed out of town with the remains; and it did not even hint at the astounding thing which followed, several blocks farther uptown! As the taxi stopped at Theodore Dalton's side gate, Hitchin all but fell from his cab as he craned forward!
By some lucky accident, he knew that house, and knew, in a general way, of its owner. This was the liniment king—and Anthony Fry was the owner of Fry's Imperial Liniment; there was a link as of solid steel, made of liniment only, yet utterly unbreakable!
What did it mean? What could it mean?