Braine was keen enough to-night.
"He is hit; whether badly or not remains to be seen. We can find that out. Drive to the nearest drug store and get a list of hospitals. It's a ten to one shot that we land him somewhere among the hospitals."
But they searched the hospitals in vain. None of them had that night received a shooting case, nor had they heard one reported. The man had been unmistakably hit. He would not have dared risk the loss of time for a bit of play-acting. Evidently he had kept his head and sought his lodgings. To call up doctors would be utter folly; for it would take a week for a thorough combing. This was the second time the man had got away.
"Perhaps I'm to blame," admitted Braine. "I should have advised Miles to stalk him and pot him if he got the chance. There's a master mind working somewhere back of all this, and it's time I woke up to the fact. But you," turning to the auto bandits, "you men have your instructions. More than that, you have been given a free rein. See that you make good, or by the Lord Harry! I'll break the four of you like pipestems."
"We haven't had a failure yet," spoke up one of the men, more courageous than his companions.
"You are not holding up a bank messenger this trip. Remember that. Drive me as far as Columbus Circle. Leave me on the side street, between the lights, so I can take off this mask."
Later Braine sauntered into Pabst's and ordered a light supper. This night's work, more than anything else, brought home to him the fact that his luck was changing. For years he had proceeded with his shady occupations without encountering any memorable failure. He moved in the high world, quite unsuspected. He had written books, given lectures, been made a lion of, all the while laughing in his sleeve at the gullibility of human nature. But within the last two weeks he had received serious checks. From now on he must move with the utmost caution. Some one was playing his own game, waging warfare unseen. A battle of wits? So be it; but Braine intended to play with rough wits, and he wasn't going to care which way the sword cut.
He hated Stanley Hargreave with all the hatred of his soul; the hatred of a man balked in love. And the man was alive, defying him; alive somewhere in this city this very night, with a bullet under his skin.
"Is everything satisfactory, sir?" he heard the head waiter say.
"Satisfactory?" Braine repeated blankly.