O’Leary slipped into his things and joined him in the hall.
“Where away?”
“I prefer not to go out of the Arcade—I have reasons,” said Dangerfield, his voice pitched just above the normal. “We will go down a couple of flights and out through the apartment-house.”
They descended, and by a bridge (one of the many mysterious byways of the Arcade) passed into an apartment-house that set upon the side street. Down this they went without word of explanation, O’Leary more and more intrigued by the behavior of his companion, who stopped at each landing to read the cards upon the door-plates, talking to himself the while. At the entrance below, as O’Leary was passing curiously out, he caught him with a sudden restraining clutch and a low admonition. Then he lit a match and studied the row of mail-boxes in the vestibule.
“No, no; that’s all right,” he said at last. “Old cards, all of them. No changes here.” He blew out the match and looked back at the stairs lost in the dimness of the hall light. “Uncanny, isn’t it? Anything might happen there. All right, now. Out, and turn straight toward Amsterdam Avenue.”
“As you say,” said O’Leary, struck by the restrained excitement in the other’s voice and gesture.
They went down the block and up the avenue two streets, then eastward to Columbus Avenue, and prepared to descend. Opposite Healy’s, Dangerfield stopped and said abruptly:
“Now, O’Leary, keep your eyes open and if you see any one you have seen before—” He stopped short, and his eyes set suspiciously on the other’s face.
“Any one I’ve seen before?” said O’Leary, frowning.