“Just then they came into the light of an arc lamp, and I got a flash at the ear of the one who said he’d been in a fight. I saw the white scar. At once I piped off his right hand, and I saw that he had a finger tied up in a white rag. That was enough. I kept right on[Pg 23] past them, as if I wasn’t interested. But I knew they were suspicious.”
“What did they do?”
“They waited till I’d got to the corner, where I turned around. I know that part of the avenue pretty well, and I made for a vacant lot with boards built up around it. There’s one loose board that I’d noticed when I was past there last week, and it had struck me then that it would be handy if a fellow happened to want to hide.”
“That’s right, Patsy!” commended Nick. “A good detective is always careful to take note of everything. The most unimportant things—or things that seem unimportant—may mean a great deal at some other time.”
“Exactly the way I’d figured it,” said Patsy, his freckled face flushing with pleasure at his chief’s words. “And it just hit the spot to-night. I slipped through the hole—just wide enough for me to squeeze through—and pulled the board back into place.”
“It’s a good job you’re slim, Patsy,” smiled Nick.
“Yes. That’s been a help to me many times. Anyhow, as I was going to say, I hadn’t more than got behind the boards, when the chinks came to the corner and peeked around. There’s a big arc light there, you know, so that I could see them quite plainly. They waited a minute, and then they walked past the place where I was, and hustled around into Madison Avenue. I was out of the hole and at the corner just as they boarded a street car.”
“Did you get on the same car?” asked Chick.
Patsy shook his head emphatically.
“Not me, Chick. I was too wise for that. But luck was with me, for another car came along, close behind the other. There had been a blockade downtown, and there was a string of five or six cars in a row.”