At the corner of Thirty-fourth Street, the fellow crossed to Third Avenue and stationed himself against a pillar of the elevated railroad, from which point he could keep an eye on each of the four corners. He watched each of these corners as if he were waiting for some one.
Nick put himself out of sight, after he had made a mark on the pavement with red chalk, that would tell Patsy, on his return, that he was there, and waited.
But he did not wait long, for Patsy, in an excellent make-up of an east-side tough, slouched up.
Seeing the mark on the pavement, he looked about, first to locate the man followed, and then for his chief.
Nick beckoned to him from a doorway, and Patsy went to him.
“What is it, Patsy?” asked Nick.
“He’s a crook,” said Patsy. “I’ve known him this long time. He wasn’t in the Thirty-fifth Street job, but he’s on to it and is doing a little fly-cop work himself.”
“I don’t catch your meaning,” said Nick.
“It’s this way: The fellow is Spike Thomas. He suspects that two men that he has worked with sometimes, had a job last night. He suspects that that job was the Thirty-fifth Street house. He’s wanting to get on straight, so as to get into the divvy. He tumbled to me as being on your staff and he tumbled to you at the door. He knows we’re working on the case, and he tried to put it over me to find out how much we’d found out.”
“What did you tell him?”