As de Socotra got out at the Stickney Arms he said with scarcely a glance at Greg: "Let your engine run. I shan't be in here more than five minutes."
Greg waited in what anxiety can be imagined. The five minutes seemed like as many hours. From where he stood beside his cab he could not see the windows of the eighth floor, so he backed across the road and looked up. On this part of Riverside the houses are not built directly on the Drive, but on a narrow roadway terraced above it. There were ornamental bushes and shrubs on this slope. It was almost dark now and many of the windows showed lights, but not the third window from the corner on the eighth floor.
Greg tried to picture to himself what was going on within the apartment. All of a sudden his plan seemed preposterous to him. How could he expect the carefully-reared Amy suddenly to play the part of a pick-pocket successfully!—and in five minutes. If she tried it at all he feared it would only be to betray herself to de Socotra with perhaps tragic results.
But just as he had made up his mind to the worst his heart gave a great leap of gladness, for from the window he watched fluttered something white. She had actually done it! Bravo, Amy!
He returned to his cab. Presently de Socotra reappeared, and at the same moment Henry Saunders came around the corner on foot. The two men met at the foot of the steps. They addressed each other in Spanish, but from expression and gesture it was not difficult to guess what was said. Saunders told de Socotra that he had something important to tell him. De Socotra replied that he was in a hurry to catch his train and invited Saunders to ride down-town with him. The two men entered the cab.
Greg's face turned grim. What was the nature of Saunders' communication? Was it possible that Amy's fiancé intended to betray them?
De Socotra said: "Back to the Southern Terminal. You can make it if you hurry. You have twenty-five minutes."
Turning into the Drive proper, Greg speeded downtown. On that broad thoroughfare, unimpeded by cross traffic, the speed limit is a little bit eased. At the end of the Drive he bore through Seventy-second Street, but instead of continuing down-town by Broadway, the main motor highway, he turned into Amsterdam, and running in the car-tracks of that unfrequented street opened her up wide.
He would have given much to hear what was being said behind. Whatever it was he fervently hoped that it would not prevent de Socotra from taking his train. Once he saw him safe aboard that train Greg determined that he would go openly to Amy and get the little black book from her. Once they had that precious evidence in their hands, little matter if de Socotra did discover their relations. But Amy could scarcely go on living under his roof.
Greg had reached the boundary of the Western Central freight yards and had turned east to find a better street down-town when he was startled by a violent rapping on the glass behind him. At the same moment de Socotra opened the cab door.