At eight o'clock he was still there, looking bored.
At eight-thirty he was still there, wearing a puzzled expression.
At nine he called the adoring hall-boy, gave him a quarter with minute instructions, and saw him disappear into the hallway of Number 205. Three minutes later the boy was back, breathless but enthusiastic.
"Missis Simmons," he explained between gasps, "says she ain't never heard of nobody named Maitland. Somebody rang her bell a while ago an' apologized for disturbin' her—said he wanted the folks on the top floor. I guess yer man went acrost the roofs: them houses is all connected, and yuh c'n walk clear from the corner here tuh half-way up tuh Nineteenth Street, on Sain' Nicholas Avenoo."
"Uh-huh," laconically returned the detective. "Thanks." And turning on his heel, walked westward.
The policeman crossed the street to detain him for a moment's chat.
"I guess it's all off, Jim," Hickey told him. "Some one must've tipped that crook off. Anyway, I ain't goin' to wait no longer."
"I wouldn't neither," agreed the uniformed member. "Say, who's yer friend yeh was talkin' tuh, 'while ago?"
"Oh, a frien' of mine. Yeh didn't have no call to git excited then,
Jim. G'night."
And Hickey proceeded westward, a listless and preoccupied man by the vacant eye of him. But when he emerged into the glare of Eighth Avenue his face was unusually red. Which may have been due to the heat. And just before boarding a down-town surface car, "Oh," he enunciated with gusto, "hell!"