“Yes,” cried the teamster. “Some one stolen it?”
“Yes.” Patsy took the quickest and surest way to get the information he wanted. “Which way did it go?”
“Through the next street to the right, toward Main Street. You’ll have to fly, kid, to catch it.”
Patsy rushed on again, scarce waiting for the last, but again he was marked for failure. He arrived at the corner too late to see the car. Only the moving people and vehicles in the electric glare in Main Street, then only a block away, met his anxious gaze.
“I’ll keep on, by thunder!” he muttered, instantly resuming the pursuit. “It may have been held up for a moment. It must have turned to the left, too, or it would have gone direct if intending to cross Main Street. I’ll not quit, by gracious! while there’s a ghost of a chance to overtake it.”
Patsy’s grit was good, but his quest proved vain again, and he had no alternative but to end the futile pursuit. He gazed with bitter disappointment up and down the broad thoroughfare, still walking briskly in the direction in which he knew the motor car had gone, and, though he was not then aware of it, he presently came to a crosstown street and trolley line within a stone’s throw of the Waldmere Chambers.
Then, as he was about to return to the hotel to report to his chief, the gloom of disappointment was suddenly dispelled. The motor car was passing rapidly through the crosstown street. There was no mistaking it—the same number plate, the same muffled driver, the same closely curtained tonneau, yet in which Patsy caught a mere momentary glimpse of a solitary figure.
“Holy smoke! I’m in luck again,” he said to himself, with a thrill of elation. “The doctor must have stopped somewhere and now is off in a new direction. This looks like soft walking, for fair, if they will only follow the trolley line.”
An electric car going in the same direction was passing, and Patsy quickly boarded it, joining the motorman on the front platform. Slipping him a bank note, he said confidentially:
“Don’t ask any questions, but help me to keep that motor car in sight. Do you get me?”