When Sam Pepper went out he wore a big slouch hat and a coat which he had not donned for years. He usually wore a derby hat, and his general appearance surprised the newsboy not a little.
"He acts as if he wanted to be disguised," thought the boy. "Something is up, sure."
Then of a sudden he remembered the talk he had had with Pepper about robbing an old man—the man who had in some way been connected with his father's downfall, if Pepper's story was true. Was it possible Pepper was going to undertake the job that very night, and alone?
"I believe he is!" thought Nelson. "And if that's so, I'll follow him!"
With the boy, to think was to act, and in a few minutes he was prepared to follow Sam Pepper. The man had locked the front door and taken the key with him. Nelson slipped out of a rear window and fastened the window from the outside by means of a nail shoved into a hole in a corner—a trick he had learned some time before.
When the boy came out on the street he ran up the thoroughfare for a couple of blocks, and was just in time to see Sam Pepper making his way up the stairs of the elevated railroad station. When the train came along Pepper entered the front car, and our hero took the car behind it. Nelson buttoned up his coat and pulled his hat far down over his eyes to escape recognition, but Sam Pepper never once looked around to see if he was being followed.
Leaving the Bowery, the elevated train continued up Third Avenue until Fifty-ninth Street was reached. Here Sam Pepper got off, and Nelson, who was on the watch, did the same. The man descended to the street and walked slowly toward Fifth Avenue. Our hero followed like a shadow. He was now certain that Pepper was bent on the robbery of the place he had mentioned that afternoon.
Mark Horton's residence stood on the avenue, but a few blocks below Central Park. As Sam Pepper had said, there was an alleyway in the rear, with a small iron fence. Beyond was a small courtyard, and here there was a balcony with an alcove window opening into the library. Over the window was a heavy curtain, which the retired merchant sometimes closed when at the safe, so that curious neighbors might not pry into his affairs. But the neighbors were now away on a vacation in Europe—something which Sam Pepper had noted with considerable satisfaction.
It did not take the man long to climb over the iron fence and on to the little balcony. Noiselessly he tried the window, to find it locked. But the catch was an old-fashioned one, and he readily pushed it aside with a blade of his knife. Then he raised the window inch by inch. At last he had it high enough, and he stepped into the room, behind the heavy curtain before mentioned.