It seemed hopeless: as in a checker game they had him at disadvantage with the odd number of the “move.” Theirs was the chance to observe, and an open attempt to follow them would be ridiculous. Then, the footprints gave him an idea.
Dimly behind could be discerned the two men, as he quickened his pace, turning into a side street, off Fifth Avenue. Here he knew that traffic would be light, and his footprints the best evidence of his progress. The men unwittingly caught his plan, and dropped almost out of sight. At the intersection of Madison Avenue, they quickened their steps, and caught up with him again. Across corners, down quiet streets, and by purposed diagonals he led them: still they dogged his footprints. So adroit were they that only one experienced in the art could have realized their watchfulness.
Shirley now turned a corner quickly, into an unusually deserted thoroughfare, running with short steps, so as not to betray his speed by the tracks. Before they had time to round the corner he ran up the thinly blanketed steps of a private residence. Then he backed, as swiftly down the stoop, and thus crablike, walked across the street, down a dozen houses and backward still, up the steps of another private dwelling. Inside the vestibule he hid himself. The entry had strong wooden outside doors, and he tried the strength of the hinges: they satisfied him. A dim light burned behind the glass of the inner portal. He quietly clambered up the door, and balanced himself on the wood which gallantly stood the strain. Fortunately it did not come within four feet of the high ceiling of the old fashioned house.
He suffered a good ten minutes' wait before his ruse was rewarded. Being on the “fence” was a pastime compared to this precarious test of his muscles. The two men who had followed the first footprints tired of waiting before the house. One of them determined to investigate the other steps, which led into the house of their vigilance, from the other dwelling. And so he followed on, to the vestibule where he rang the bell. Shirley could have touched his head, so near he was, but the darkness of the upper space covered the retreat of the criminologist.
“What do you want?” was the angry question of an indignant old caretaker who answered the bell tardily. “You woke me up.”
“Say, lady, can I speak to Mr. Montague Shirley?” began the man, gingerly.
“You get away from this house, you loafer or I'll call the police. No one by that name ain't here. Now, you get!”
She slammed the door in his face.
“I'll get Chuck to watch de udder joint,” muttered the man, in a tone audible to Shirley. “Den I'll go back and git orders from Phil.”
This habit of thinking aloud was expensive. Shirley stiffly but noiselessly slid down the steps, as he disappeared in the thickening snowfall. The criminologist slowly crossed the street, and sheltered himself in a basement entrance, from which he reversed the shadowing process. The twain hesitated before the first house, then one came up the sidewalk, as the other stood his ground. This man passed within a few feet of Shirley, who followed him over to Madison Avenue, then north to Fifty-fifth Street. Here he turned west, and turned into one of the old stables, formerly used by the gentry of the exclusive section for their blooded steeds. Into one building, which announced its identity as “Garage” with its glittering electric sign, the man disappeared.