Surprised, but making no comment, the maid led the way. Scanlon passed through a door into the yard and then through a gate which opened upon a small, quiet street.
"Thank you!" said he. And when the gate had been closed and the maid vanished, he started down the street; in a few moments he had rounded the corner; then a dozen yards brought him to the thoroughfare on which Nora's house stood. Cautiously, he peered from a sheltering doorway. Yes, there was the figure of the Swiss in the same position as before; and as Scanlon looked he saw a tall, stoop-shouldered man cross the street and stop at Bohlmier's side.
"Big Slim," said Bat. "That's who the sign was being passed to a while ago."
He watched the two men while they engaged in earnest conversation; then they started off, and he followed them. However, they did not go far; at the intersection of a small street they paused and then disappeared. Something in their manner of doing this told Bat their intention.
"They are going to lie low just around the corner," he said. "Waiting for something, I think."
He was but a dozen yards from Nora's house at this moment; and at an ornamental iron gate, of the period just after the Civil War, stood an aged colored man, very black, very highly collared and with much of the dignity of a servant of the old time. Bat paused and said with the carelessness of a casual stroller:
"Nice old street you have here, uncle."
There was the proper amount of confidence in the big athlete's manner, and his voice had that subtle shade of authority which carried the remark in its proper groove. For these ancient servitors are to be approached in only one way if results are to be had.
"Yas, suh," replied the black man at the gate, "yas, suh! It is a nice ol' street, suh. Not whut it was yeahs ago when I fust come here, no suh. But nice and quiet. And 'spectable."
"Of course," said Bat "Sure enough, entirely respectable!" He watched and saw that the two did not reappear at the street corner; a feeling of doubt was in his mind; he had no means of knowing if his conjectures as to their movements were true. However, if they had gone, very well! If they had not—well, he would be there and would know. "Yes," he went on, "a fine old block. Not many like it left."