He no sooner was at liberty, moreover, than he hurried to the nearest hotel, where he entered a telephone booth and remained for several minutes.
It was then that Patsy heard him call for a long-distance wire, also catching the name of B. Ardley just as Toulon closed the booth door, but mistaking it for Beardly precisely as Nick afterward suspected.
Unable to overhear more, Patsy seized the opportunity to write and send the telegram to Nick, which the detective received an hour later.
Patsy then shadowed Toulon to an all-night restaurant, where the waiter ate a hearty meal, remaining there until three o’clock and then returning to the railway station, where he purchased a ticket.[Pg 32]
Patsy inquired a little later and learned that the ticket was for the same town noticed by Nick when approaching Dugan’s road house that morning, and he immediately bought one for the same place.
“There’s nothing to this,” Patsy reasoned, quickly sizing up the circumstance. “He’s going to take the back track. The rascal is going to return and join the gang that did that job last night. He probably wants his bit of the coin.
“The chief sized him up correctly, all right, and it still is up to me to stick to the frog-eating miscreant. It will be a cold day, by thunder, if I don’t have a hand in rounding up the whole bunch.”
Patsy did not think it necessary to again communicate with Nick by telegram, intending to telephone to him after reaching his destination, but the train did not enter the town until after seven o’clock that morning, and Toulon then kept Patsy on the move.
For he started at once on foot for the Ardley place, diverging from the road just before arriving there, and approaching it by a short cut through the woods.
Patsy had kept him constantly in view up to that time, avoiding observation with some little difficulty, but he lost sight of him when the rascal suddenly plunged into the woods.