“Let me have Norton,” he said, some moments later to Sampson, and to me he said:
“I want you to cover 211 Clementina Street. Don’t bother anybody. Just see who goes in or out or hangs around there. I’ll pick you up later down there. Wait for me no matter what happens.”
He jumped into a taxicab at the curbing and whirled away out Market Street. I hastened to my station, in that gloomy, narrow street of rookeries. Almost opposite 211 was a deep doorway. I flattened back in the shadows, trusting to luck that the occupants were all in bed and that no one would walk up on me. I was not bothered. An hour passed and another. I heard someone come out of a house a few doors above me and saunter down the street toward me. I huddled back. The figure passed within six feet of me. By the dim rays of the gas lamp on the corner, throwing its feeble area of light a dozen yards, I recognised Detective Thomas.
He slipped into the side door of the corner saloon. “Off his job, whatever it is,” I said to myself. “Something should happen now. It usually does in such cases.”
It did. Noiselessly on the opposite sidewalk passed a figure in a heavy black overcoat with a high collar turned up around the ears and a soft hat pulled down. In front of 211 the figure stopped for a fraction of a second, it may have been to look for something that had been dropped; but it appeared to me to fumble an instant by the steps. The figure then passed rapidly on.
Thomas, a fresh cigar between his teeth, sauntered back to his post. The figure that had stopped at 211 had disappeared around the corner at Seventh Street. Thomas had certainly missed the episode entirely.
There was a long interval. The door at 211 opened, slowly. A girl came out, finally; a girl with a crutch. She came down the three steps, looked up and down and across the street, and suddenly dropped down and I could see that she was rummaging in the space under the stairs.
Stepping easily, I saw Thomas, his cigar still puffing leisurely, cross the street. He was almost beside the girl before she saw him. There came a faint cry of alarm, quickly smothered, as she straightened up, her back to the house. I walked quickly to them in time to hear Thomas’s voice:
“Well, miss, find any presents? Little late for Santa Claus, isn’t it? But let’s see. Let’s just see what you were looking for under those stairs.”
He dropped to his knees, threw his pocket flash about, and arose, a small package wrapped in a newspaper in his hand. The girl was staring with startled, wide eyes. She was breathing quickly, her thin bosom rising and falling. Thomas wheeled on me, was about to snap at me, thought better of it, and remarked: