“What became of him?”
“He executed one of the finest disappearances that I ever saw. It was just at the moment when the coachman’s club was over your head. I had to keep the coachman covered, and when I took my eyes off him, the other man had vanished.”
“It’s of no consequence,” said Nick. “At present we want him to be at large. We want to take his gang with him in order to secure the evidence we need.”
They walked a short distance in silence. Then Nick said:
“I must go home to receive Ida’s report. At eleven o’clock I will meet you at Twenty-eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. Then we will descend upon the ‘fence.’”
Nick heard the report of his clever young assistant, Ida Jones, and then proceeded at once to his rendezvous with Chick.
It was eleven o’clock exactly when they met. They had assumed the characters of well-known thieves.
Chick was the exact image of “Kid” Leary. Nick was Al Hardy, the notorious second-story thief.
“Pat Powers wanted to take me in,” said Chick, indicating a policeman who stood on the opposite corner. “He says that if I tell any of the boys at the station about it he’ll commit suicide.”
“He doesn’t need to be ashamed of it,” said Nick, surveying the perfect make-up of his friend.