"Certainly. The others don't matter."
Straight down the long empty course of Broadway they were led at top speed; through the mile of automobile warerooms, now dark, and the half mile of theaters and restaurants where a few lights still maintained a dingy semblance of festivity, including the strange blue glare of the little photograph stores, which for some mysterious reason keep open all night. In this quarter a few revelers were still to be seen, bound more or less homeward, their loud and repetitious assurances of regard only broken by violent quarrels; while owl taxis like Greg's own surreptitiously followed them on the chance of picking up business. Still they kept on down Broadway through the nondescript stretch between Herald and Madison Squares, the Tenderloin of a bygone day.
"He must be bound for Brooklyn," said Greg.
But at Twentieth Street the car in front turned to the east. Greg followed at a discreet distance. In that dark and silent quarter greater care was necessary if they wished to keep the man in front from guessing that he was followed. At Gramercy Park his car turned south again into Irving Place, and they lost it for a moment.
When they cautiously turned the Irving Place corner they saw that the other cab had come to a stop half-way down that short street. Even as they looked the tall man's bags were carried into a building on that side. His cab went on.
They drove slowly past the place where he had disappeared. It was a modest little hotel with a Spanish name: Hotel dos Estados Unidos. Through the windows of the lobby they saw the tall man standing by the desk, apparently being assigned to a room.
"What does he come here for?" murmured the girl more and more perplexed.
Greg went on for a block, and turning, came slowly back on the other side. The hotel lobby was now empty, except for the dozing clerk behind the desk. Greg brought the cab to a stop just beyond the hotel where they could still command an oblique view of the lobby.
"What now?" he said.
"I don't know what to say," she murmured. "I can't imagine why he should come here to sleep. I can't believe that he does mean to sleep here. I believe he'll be out again. Let's wait and see."