Phil got away at last. He was not interested in the fortunes of Miss Turner or the gossip of Mrs. Parker's boarding-house. He was too supremely interested in the strange actions of the mysterious Miss Williams. Darn the girl anyway! She deliberately had run inside the first boarding-house they had come to, stopping calmly in the vestibule until he had gone his way, when she probably had come out again and gone home without an escort. Or perhaps she had met Stiles again. Or perhaps——
"What d'you know about it?" he muttered as he sat down on a boulevard railing and mopped his forehead in disgust.
Well, if this girl sought to avoid him she was going the wrong way about it. You bet he would make it his business now to find out exactly what was what; also what her friend, Jimmy Stiles, was up to. People here in Toronto didn't go around following other people and being set upon in the public parks—not ordinarily. The more he thought it over the more certain he became that their actions were linked up somehow with his own investigations. Why not? The girl had spied upon Podmore, who was in league with Nickleby; she had dealings with Jimmy Stiles who, according to Nathaniel Lawson, was very much under Nickleby's thumb. There was enough Nickleby mixed up in it for all sorts of possibilities. He wondered what Podmore knew about her.
There was the next move for him to make—go and see Podmore and find out. He got to his feet at once and started for the nearest street-car line. He ought to be able to catch Podmore just finishing a late breakfast at the Queen's.
"Sorry, sir, but Mr. Podmore checked out last night," the clerk informed him when at last he reached the hotel.
"Checked out?" echoed Phil in surprise. "Last night, you say? Did he leave any message for me?"
"No, sir."
"And you don't know where he went, eh?"
"I'm sorry, sir; but he didn't say. I believe the porter took some baggage for him over to the Union Station; so he's evidently gone out of town."
Kendrick walked off slowly. It was not hard to guess whither the time-serving Mr. Podmore was bound. He was running true to form and Phil grinned as he thought of the surprise that lay awaiting in the hollow stump beside the tank at the Thorlakson siding. It would be worth something to see the expression on Podmore's face when he opened that fake envelope of Wade's with its bogus bills.