Nolan’s train of thought was brought to an abrupt end by a sudden, unexpected move of the other.
Morris Garland turned from the sidewalk and quickly crossed the avenue. He then walked quite slowly, with his gaze directed to the side from which he had come, and once he paused for a moment to gaze at the door and windows of an opposite house, one of a long brick block.
Nolan took a look at it, also, but he could discover nothing warranting Garland’s manifest interest in the house.
The door was closed. The curtains at most of the windows were drawn down. Some of the windows were dusty, and the front steps had not recently been swept. The house looked, in fact, aside from its furnishings, as if it was unoccupied.
“What’s hit him, now?” Nolan asked himself. “Why is he sizing up that crib? Nobody home but the gas, and that’s leaking out. I wonder——”
Another move by Garland broke Nolan’s train of thought.
Garland quickly recrossed the avenue, then hastened up to the appointed corner, glancing sharply in all directions.
“Looking for me,” Nolan tersely thought, slinking back in the doorway. “I’ll let him look for half a minute and see what he’ll do next.”
Garland did not look as long as half a minute. He evidently assumed that Nolan had not yet completed his work and arrived there. He turned abruptly and hastened to a house on the opposite corner of the cross-street, entering with a key.
“That must be where the bloke lives,” Nolan reasoned. “That’s why I was told to come up here to report. I’ll see—huh! there he is again.”