“Nothing, I guess,” replied the operator. “Just wanted to make sure. A little while ago I went outside — just after I took you up. Went to the front door to smoke a cigarette. Thought I saw a guy slide up to the edge of the building.”
“What did he look like?”
“I couldn’t see. I wasn’t even sure it was a man. Looked like somebody slipping into the shadow alongside of the entrance. I went out to look around. Didn’t see anybody. But I just wanted to be sure it wasn’t any one watching you.”
“All right, kid,” said Cronin. “Guess you’d better lay off this stuff they call good liquor. Nobody’s worrying about me. I’m not doing anything.”
He left the apartment house, and as he went out of the door, he glanced at the shadowy spot mentioned by the elevator operator. It was only a small dark place near the entrance, and Steve Cronin laughed as he saw it.
Had Steve Cronin been less intent in his consideration of machine guns, and his plans for the night, he might have looked behind him as he walked along the street. But even if he had looked behind him, he probably would have seen nothing.
For the form which moved from the spot of blackness beside the entrance to the Escadrille Apartments was scarcely more than a shadowy blot. It emerged before Cronin had gone more than thirty feet. It flitted across the entrance, then disappeared again.
The shadowy blot had the form of a man’s silhouette, yet no person was visible against the wall. Then the moving blackness disappeared, and was lost in the night.
Still, it followed Steve Cronin, and always remained the same distance behind him. For every time the gangster passed beneath the bright lights of a street corner, the moving shadow became visible as it flitted swiftly after him.