“Don’t do anything rash,” Johnny continued. “If he shows up, let me know. I’ve got a room facing the water front. I’ll bet you can see that window from the place where you work. There’s a door at the back of the building. You’ll know the place; the first building to the right after you cross Wells Street bridge. That back door isn’t locked. In a dark corner behind the door is a small box with a slot in it. If that man comes back you just hop right over there and slip an orange wrapper in that box. There’s plenty of them in South Water Street. That will be a message to me, and it won’t tell a thing to anyone else, even if they rob the box.”
“All right, Johnny, I’ll do that.”
For a time they sat there staring at the lake. Then slowly their heads drooped, and with arms crossed like their primitive ancestors, the ape-men, they sat on this strange island so near and yet so far from a great city, sat by the fire asleep, but ever ready at the slightest sound to seize a club or a stone in defense of their lives and Ben Zook’s crude home.
CHAPTER XI
JOHNNY GETS A TIP
“Johnny,” began the Chief as Johnny entered the office late that afternoon, “there’s a man in town I want you to watch. I want——”
Suddenly he paused to stare at the swollen side of Johnny’s head. “Who hit you?” he asked.
“I—I got a bump there.” Johnny did not wish to tell the Chief about his island experience. He was afraid the Chief would not like his going against advice; and besides, if something came of this little excursion, something really big, he felt that he had a right when the time was ripe to spring it as a surprise. He was truly relieved when the Chief did not press the question.
“As I was about to say,” the Chief resumed, “there’s a man come to town recently, a man I want you to get in touch with if you can. That is, I mean locate and shadow him. The fact that he wasn’t here at the time this series of fires started doesn’t necessarily prove that he hasn’t a hand in them. The brains of a gang is not always on the spot all the time.
“This man,” he leaned forward in his chair, “is credited with a dozen big blazes in New York, and now he’s come to Chicago.
“He’s been credited with them but, shrewd as the New York police are and persistent as were the insurance patrols, not one of these fires has been surely pinned on him. So here he is in Chicago.