ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS IN A LEAD CAPSULE
And beneath this, still in assertive type:
Famous French Surgeon en route to Japan with Fortune in Radium Misses Connections Through Destruction of Railroad Bridge.
Offers Company Large Sum of Money for Special Train to the Coast.
“Yes,” observed the Hawk caustically, “and even if I hadn't known anything about it before, I'd have had a look-in thanks to this! Sting you, wouldn't it! The papers hand you a come-on—and then they wonder at crime!”
The “story” itself ran a column and a half. The Hawk began to read—or, rather, to divide his attention between the story and the hotel entrances. The reporter had certainly set out with the intention of overlooking no detail that could be turned to account. His meeting and conversation with the Frenchman in the car were breezily set forth; the member of a “prominent family” in Japan artfully disguised, or, perhaps better, disclosed no less august a personage than the Emperor himself; the value of radium, both intrinsically and scientifically, was interestingly dealt with; and the surgeon's black handbag, with its priceless contents, was minutely described and featured.
The Hawk had reached this point, when suddenly the newspaper and the reporter's version of the story lost interest for him. Doctor Meunier, gripping his little black handbag tenaciously, had stepped out through the main entrance of the hotel, and was walking briskly down the street. A moment later, the Bantam sauntered through the doorway and started in the same direction, a hundred yards behind the Frenchman. The Hawk, with a grim smile, folded his paper, stuffed it into his pocket, rose from the bench, crossed the street, and fell into the procession—a hundred yards behind the Bantam.
It was still light, though it was beginning to grow dusk—too light for any highway thuggery, and yet—the Hawk gradually closed the gap between himself and the Bantam to half the original distance.
The chase led on for a half dozen blocks, then turned into one of the crowded streets of the shopping district, and proceeded in a downtown direction. And then, abruptly, the Hawk dropped further behind the Bantam again, and crossed to the opposite sidewalk. It was perhaps only fancy, but intuitively he felt that he, too, in turn, was being followed. His hat brim, hiding his face, was pulled a little farther forward over his eyes, as he hurried now until he was abreast of the Frenchman. Intuition or not, it was quite possible and even likely that one of the gang might “cover” the Bantam.
The Hawk scowled. He could not be sure; and he dared not put it to more than a casual test, for he could not afford to lose sight of the Bantam. He paused, took a slip of paper from his pocket, and, as though having consulted it for an address, appeared to scan the signs and numbers on the stores in his immediate vicinity. The Frenchman had passed by; the Bantam was directly opposite to him now across the street. The Hawk's keen eyes searched the stream of pedestrians behind the Bantam. And then suddenly he shrugged his shoulders, and returned the paper to his pocket—a man, in a light suit and brown derby hat, had stepped out of the crowd, and was leisurely lighting a cigarette in a doorway just across from where he, the Hawk, stood.