His face grew very white.
“John Bruce,” he whispered to himself, “if I could get at you I'd pound your face to pulp for that!”
He leaned out from the platform. The traveling pawn-shop had increased its speed and was steadily leaving the street car behind. He looked back in the opposite direction. The street was almost entirely deserted as far as traffic went. The only vehicle in sight was a taxi bowling along a block in the rear. He laughed out again harshly. The conductor eyed him suspiciously.
John Bruce dropped off the car, and planted himself in the path of the on-coming taxi. Call it his job, then, if it pleased him! He owed it to Larmon to get to the bottom of this. How extremely logical he was! The transaction in the traveling pawn-shop had been so fair-minded as almost to exonerate Monsieur Henri de Lavergne on the face of it, and if it had not been for a certain vision therein, and a fire in his own veins, and a fury at the thought that even her acquaintance with the gambling manager was profanity, he could have heartily applauded Monsieur Henri de Lavergne for a unique and original——
The taxi bellowed at him, hoarsely indignant.
John Bruce stepped neatly to one side—and jumped on the footboard.
“Here, you! What the hell!” shouted the chauffeur. “You——”
“Push your foot on it a little,” said John Bruce calmly. “And don't lose sight of that closed car ahead.”
“Lose sight of nothin'!” yelled the chauffeur. “I've got a fare, an'——”
“I hear him,” said John Bruce composedly. He edged in beside the chauffeur, and one of the crisp, new, fifty-dollar banknotes passed into the latter's possession. “Keep that car in sight, and don't make it hopelessly obvious that you are following it. I'll attend to your fare.”