It was a woman hunt, too; for of course Doris and Felice, forward, must be a part of the quarry; and as I reckoned their chances, I thought that never a bulldog-jawed hound had run a quarry into a more hopeless hollow log than the one into which this man of the Iron Age had run my friends of the Flamingo Feather when he followed them on to the Century. He had them where and when he wanted them; they simply couldn’t get away. Of course, I didn’t know whether or not he was alone, in the sense whether he had other operatives with him; that made no difference; he had the clothing merchants and the golfers; the married pair, and mother and son; the assorted six with the bond salesmen,—if you cared to count them; he had a hundred with him whenever he wanted them. George and Doris, with Felice, had their wits and themselves; and, since there could be no possible doubt of the outcome of the stalking I was seeing, I couldn’t help wanting them to give “Iron Age” a run before he got them.
There’s something about authority—especially when it’s so satisfied and certain and when it has all the odds on its side—which does that to one. Doris Wellington was not in my sight now; but when I thought of her as she was at the dance and as I had seen her walking down Michigan Avenue, I simply couldn’t find any impulse to help old “Iron Age” over there snap his handcuffs upon her and put that active, eager, pert little thing behind jail bars to be locked up until she was ten years older.
Now if “Iron Age” could specialize on George, I could control my emotions perfectly. I’d become somewhat more indulgent toward George, I’ve told you; yet I was not wild over him, at all. However, if “Iron Age” got George, by the same process he’d probably have Doris and maid too. So I was feeling almost friendly with George when I noticed he was standing up. He seemed absolutely casual about where he wanted to go. He wandered down nearer “Iron Age” first, yawned and turned a few pages of a Harper’s on the desk there; that seemed to make him sleepier and he strolled forward out of the car.
I arose and drifted after him. Through two Pullmans he walked ahead of me wholly unaware, so far as I could guess, that I was behind him; then, in the vestibule of the third car—with doors closed before and behind us—he half-turned his head.
“Old dear, check him,” he said to me. “Here; this door’s jammed.”
He opened the door before him as he spoke, he sidled through and, as he shut it, he dropped something which engaged the bottom of the door. His words certainly were true, then; that door was jammed. I couldn’t open it.
“Iron Age” could not budge it, when he replaced me at the knob. He must have been half a car behind me but I hadn’t even suspected it till he joined me. Together we were the better part of three minutes at the door before we could enter the next car. George was then far forward.
I stopped in the washroom of that Pullman; for I wanted a minute or so alone to think over things since George had spoken to me. He had hailed me, you see, as a sort of comrade; he’d counted on me being with him.
Now I realized that after Doris had seen me at Caldon’s and then they both had seen me at the Blackstone and here on the train, they must have attached some significance to me. And it was becoming plain to me that they made it a friendly significance; at least, they did not put me down among their pursuers. Probably Doris recognized me, not in the sense that she knew me for Steve Fanneal, but in the far more decoying sense that she realized I had been her partner at the Flamingo Feather and that, therefore, she could count on me when she needed help in this emergency.
I couldn’t decide how “Iron Age” had marked me down. He went forward through a couple of cars but evidently lost George in some washroom or compartment and he decided to give up George for the present—there was no danger in that; we were skimming along about sixty-five miles the hour. Anyway, “Iron Age” paid me the compliment of returning to me in the Pullman smoking room and he plumped himself down, emphatically, and went about the job of clearing up any doubts of me.