In taking up the trail Patsy was wary. His first effort was to determine whether the young man feared shadowing, and, if he did, whether he believed himself to be shadowed.
For the first ten minutes there were no indications of any kind on the part of the young man.
He took up a bee line for Broadway, and, turning into that thoroughfare, walked to the south with a rapid gait and a businesslike manner, turning neither to the right nor the left, nor giving any heed to persons behind him.
Thus they went, the followed and the follower, down Broadway, when, the building of the New York Life being reached, the young man suddenly turned into it with quickened pace.
Patsy broke into a sharp run. He quickly appreciated the danger he was in of losing his man. It seemed to him that these great big buildings, with their numerous elevators, many stairs and entrances and exits, were especially contrived to favor escaping crooks.
As he dashed through the entrance, he saw his man turning, on a run, into the rotunda, which is circled by elevators.
“The deuce!” cried Patsy. “My one chance is that he can’t get an elevator before I get to him.”
He ran like a deer down the long corridor, to the amazement of those who were passing.
He turned the corner just in time to see the gates of the elevator close, as it shot upward, and in it was the man he had followed.
This was almost too much for Patsy, and he gave an exclamation of chagrin. But he rapidly took in the fact that the elevator that had just gone up was the one that did not stop short of the tenth floor, and that one was to follow, stopping at each.