Pausing automatically, he glanced carelessly at the contents, and was about to resume his way when he caught sight of a small card propped against a broken pitcher. “Choice Articles Bought and Sold—Advances Made.”
Suddenly he stopped. Something seemed to interest him. To make sure that he had read the card aright, he bent closer. Evidently satisfied by his scrutiny, he drew himself erect and moved toward the shop door as if to enter. Through the glass he saw a man in shirt-sleeves, packing. The sight of the man brought another change of mind, for he stepped back and raised his head to a big sign over the front. His face now came into view, with its well-modelled nose and square chin—the features of a gentleman of both refinement and intelligence. A man of forty—perhaps of forty-five—clean-shaven, a touch of gray about his temples, his eyes shadowed by heavy brows from beneath which now and then came a flash as brief and brilliant as an electric spark. He might have been a civil engineer, or some scientist, or yet an officer on half pay.
“Otto Kling, 445 Fourth Avenue,” he repeated to himself, to make sure of the name and location. Then, with the quick movement of a man suddenly imbued with new purpose, he wheeled, leaped the overflowed gutter, and walked rapidly until he reached 13th Street. Half-way down the block he entered the shabby doorway of an old-fashioned house, mounted to the third floor, stepped into a small, poorly furnished bedroom lighted by a single gas-jet, and closed the door behind him. Lifting his wet hat from his well-rounded head, with its smoothly brushed, closely trimmed hair—a head that would have looked well in bronze—he raised the edge of the bedclothes and from underneath the narrow cot dragged out a flat, sole-leather trunk of English make. This he unlocked with a key fastened to a steel chain, took out the tray, felt about among the contents, and drew out a morocco-covered dressing-case, of good size and of evident value, bearing on its top a silver plate inscribed with a monogram and crest. The trunk was then relocked and shoved under the bed.
At this moment a knock startled him.
“Come in,” he called, covering the case with a corner of the cotton quilt.
A bareheaded, coarse-featured woman with a black shawl about her shoulders stood in the doorway. “I've come for my money,” she burst out, too angry for preliminaries. “I'm gittin' tired of bein' put off. You're two weeks behind.”
“Only two weeks? I was afraid it was worse, my dear madame,” he answered calmly, a faint smile curling his thin lips. “You have a better head for figures than I. But do not concern yourself. I will pay you in the morning.”
“I've heard that before, and I'm gittin' sick of it. You'd 'a' been out of here last week if my husband hadn't been laid up with a lame foot.”
“I am sorry to hear about the foot. That must be even worse than my being behind with your rent.”
“Well, it's bad enough with all I got to put up with. Of course I don't want to be ugly,” she went on, her fierceness dying out as she noticed his unruffled calm, “but these rooms is about all we've got, and we can't afford to take no chances.”