“All right, bo, I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Kenyon then called the office, after which he hung up and turned to Austin.
“We will possibly have some news of consequence in a little while,” said he.
“I hope so,” returned the other, “as the thing stands it’s rather unsatisfactory. This little matter of Forrester is really aggravating.”
Promptly at the expiration of ten minutes, the pugilist from Saginaw was shown in. He seemed all eagerness, and at Kenyon’s invitation immediately began his story.
“As soon as I falls to it that I’m due for some information, why, I begins to play the fox myself, see? So the more this Stalker throws his gaze around, the hotter I’m on the Sherlock thing. After getting a lot of stuff together at different places, he hikes out and gets a train for South Norwalk. But he can’t shake me, so I’m about three seats behind him all the way down. Once or twice I notices him piking me off. It’s the bandages on my top that does it; he’s sure that he’s seen them before and is trying to locate them. But I keep the innocent look, and have my nose pointed into a magazine; it’s a plain thing to me that I’ve got him guessing.
“He gets out at South Norwalk. I pike him on the platform waiting to see if I follow him. But I have the wisdom with me, and make my duck on the other side. He waits awhile; but as I’m not to be seen he starts straight off. He gets a buggy and I get another. About five miles outside the town he meets another party, quite a big stuff, who has another buggy, and hands over the things that he’s brought along. They talk for some time, and then his Stalkers turns his horse and starts back. I’m pulled off the road into a kind of wagon track, all this time, you see, so he drives by and goes on his way to the station, while I pull out and starts to follow up the other party.”
“Excellent!” praised Kenyon.
“It was only a chance,” continued the other. “I thought it might have something to do with the affair you were asking me about, you see. Well, at last the big guy comes to kind of a fine-looking old house standing away back in a little woods, and there he meets a girl with yellow hair that seems mighty glad to see him.”
Kenyon and Austin exchanged looks, but the other continued: