"Yep—I've left two men in charge—every exit's covered. And there's only one they could use—no way out back except over the fences and through other houses."
"He could hardly tackle that with a child."
"He couldn't tackle it alone and make it—not the way I've got things fixed. And I've worked out our line of action; Stebbins relieved me at half-past six and I went and had a séance with the janitor. Said I was coming round later with a man who was looking for a room—the room I'd been inquiring about. That'll let us in quiet; right up to the top floor and no questions asked."
"The only hitch possible can come from Chapman—he may be ugly and show his teeth."
The old man answered:
"I guess he'll be tractable. If he's inclined to argue bring him along with you. It's after eight. I don't want to sit here half the night. Get busy and go."
O'Malley had a taxi waiting and they slid off up the deserted regions of Broadway. After a few blocks they swerved to the left, plunging into a congeries of mean streets where a network of fire-escapes encaged the house fronts. The lights from small shops illumined the sidewalks, thick with sauntering people. The taxi moved slowly, children darting from its approach, swept round a corner and ran on through less animated lanes of travel, upper windows bright, disheveled figures leaning on the sills, vague groupings on front steps. At intervals, like the threatening voice of some advancing monster, came the roar of the elevated trains, sweeping across a vista with a rocking rush of light. O'Malley drew himself to the edge of the sea and peered out ahead.
"We're not far off now," he muttered. "We'll stop at the corner of the block—there's a bookbinding place there that's dark and quiet. If we go to the door they might catch on, get panicky, and make a row."
At one end of the street's length the lamp-spotted darkness of Washington Square showed like a spangled curtain. The cab turned from it and crossed a wide avenue over which the skeleton structure of the elevated straddled like a vast centipede. Beyond stretched a darkling perspective touched at recurring intervals with the white spheres of lamps. It was a propitious time, the evening overflow dispersed, the loneliness of the deep night hours, when a footfall echoes loud and a solitary figure looms mysterious, not yet come.
The cab drew up at the curb by the shuttered face of the book bindery and the man alighted. With a low command to the driver, O'Malley, George beside him, walked up the block. From a shadowy doorway a figure detached itself, slunk by them with a whispered hail and vanished. Toward the street's far end they stopped at a door level with the sidewalk, and O'Malley, bending to scrutinize a line of push buttons, pressed one.