“Yes; there is such a person, and he is in the next room at this moment.”
“Call him,” said the official.
A tall, thin, intelligent-looking young man, the very opposite in appearance of the one whom Patsy had followed, reported.
What was apparent was that the man followed had known of this George Vernon, and had seized on his name to throw Patsy off.
When the real George Vernon was told of the occurrence and of the man who had taken his name, he said that on the day previous he had fallen in with a man of the description given in an uptown hotel, who had expressed a wish to take out a policy on his life. The real Vernon had talked with him on that line and given him his name and department.
“Well,” said Patsy, to the high official, “my man got away, but one thing is settled, he’s a crook, and the other thing is that I have him so well sized up that I’ll know him, I don’t care how he is disguised.”
Patsy left the offices of the company, and as he did so, he said to himself:
“My man carries his shoulders as not one man in a thousand does. He has a short step and a knock-kneed gait; he has no beard and a small mole under his chin, on the left side.”
He stopped in the corridor suddenly, slapped his thigh with his hand, stood still a moment, thinking earnestly. Finally he exclaimed aloud:
“Holy smoke! I’ll bet that’s the way of it.”