“Well?” I asked him, wiping the perspiration from my forehead.
All he said was “Fine! Fine! Wait a bit yet, Norrie! That was merely a scout, taking a last look to be sure that blackjack hadn’t been removed by any prospective tenants who might have been here.”
He glanced at his dollar watch. It was six o’clock.
“There’ll be two good hours before darkness,” he said. “We’ll take a chance and leave the house uncovered while I get hold of the chief. Unless you want to stay here?” he asked banteringly. I did not want to stay there, but he had me squarely in the door, as it were, and I had to say I would if he wanted it. I sometimes think many a man is made a hero against his will. Then a great shaft of illumination struck me and I asked:
“Here, Jack; why should they bring that blackjack here? They could bring a dozen with them and nobody be any the wiser.”
But all the satisfaction I got out of that inscrutable, irritating man was: “How bright the understudy is becoming! You’ll be tackling high C yourself next!”
“However,” he went on, “I’m not going to permit you to remain here. Firstly and mainly, because I am confident nothing will happen until after dark, although for a moment I thought my theory had gone wrong, and in the second place, because you might scramble the whole platter on me and get to shooting recklessly.”
We slipped out of the alley after Lanagan had reconnoitred long. He had good reason for not wishing to appear at police headquarters. It was generally known that he was off on some sort of a still hunt. He had been seen occasionally by some of the boys, and it was known, too, that he was not drinking. His appearance at headquarters in conference with Leslie therefore might bring a corps of sharp-eyed newspaper men on our trail.
He got Leslie on the wire, and within thirty minutes was in deep conversation with that astute thief-taker in the rear room at Allenberg’s. There were few sections of the city where Lanagan was not on intimate terms with saloonmen. There are many times when they can be valuable to the police reporter, particularly in the Tenderloin and down town. The two did not take me into their confidence, but once I heard Leslie say, explosively:
“Jack, you’re as daffy as a horned toad.”