“If we miss this time,” observed Bob, “we’re only started. You can’t beat the Chief. He figured old Galvin’s game before. He’ll get it right again.”
With that, Bob picked up a book and leaned back in his chair. As an afterthought, he placed his watch upon the table.
He leaned back again and began to read, calmly and with apparent interest. At times, he stopped to glance at the watch; and on each occasion, a brutal smile flickered on his lips.
Ten o’clock was approaching. Some dastardly scheme would reach its culmination then. The young man with the evil leer was awaiting the zero hour for tonight’s crime.
CHAPTER VI
THE THIRD KILLER
RICHARD HARKNESS was a middle-aged architect with eccentric ideas. He was artistic by nature, and had always regretted that he had not become a portrait painter.
Because of his artistic sentiments, he lived alone in an obscure house on the fringe of Greenwich Village. To him the spot was a sanctuary in the midst of Manhattan’s tumult.
Harkness was a bachelor. He usually spent his evenings alone. Knowing his retiring habits, his friends seldom called him on the telephone.
Tonight, Harkness was reading a new book on portrait painting. He sat in his third-story living room — a studio, he called it. The walls were decorated with pictures — some of them painted by Harkness himself.