"Tell him, please, that I would like to have you go with me to-morrow as soon after nine o'clock as you can get here. I shall want you to show me the building, and identify the man Patterson."
"That I will, miss, if he's served you any trick."
Poubalov walked very rapidly after he left Mr. Pembroke's. He could have saved himself many steps by taking a street-car, but he evidently preferred energetic action.
Paul, following, took note, as Litizki had done on a similar occasion, of the streets through which he passed, and at last he saw him pause and stand for several minutes at the curb, looking across the road at what seemed to be an old-fashioned hotel. After a time he walked slowly on, and soon thereafter was joined by a man with whom he conversed.
Paul went near enough to see the man's face, but he did not recognize him as anybody he had ever seen before. The conversation finished, Poubalov continued on his way, again walking rapidly, but this time, after coming to Washington Street, he boarded a downtown car. An open car was directly behind it, and Paul found a place on its front seat, thus being enabled to keep the spy in view until he alighted at Scollay Square.
The guilty as well as the innocent must eat, and supper was the next thing to engage Poubalov's attention. Paul improved the opportunity in the same way, but he finished quickly, and waited a long time for the spy to come forth. He had been watching the restaurant entrance from a doorway across the street, and at last he ventured over to see whether possibly his quarry had escaped him. No; there sat Poubalov, at a table not far from the door, his head bent down as if he were thinking profoundly. His supper lay almost untouched before him. Just as Paul looked in, the head waiter touched the customer on the shoulder.
Poubalov looked up with a start, and the head waiter seemed to be apologizing for his intrusion. It was clear that he had supposed the customer to be asleep, or ill. Poubalov paid his check and left the place.
He went to his lodging-house, and when Paul saw that he had lit the gas, he, too, went inside.
He locked the door immediately and applied his eye to the nail hole.
Poubalov sat with folded arms in an old-fashioned rocking chair, gazing abstractedly before him. On the little center table under the chandelier, Paul could just distinguish Clara's photograph.