“All right,” I told him. “Don’t rub it in. What’s the program now?”
“Well,” he answered, “here’s my idea. I’m going out presently to hire a big car. I’m not going to get it from the Police Department of course, because they would spot the license. Then I’ll take your suit-case with me and pick you up near by here.
“It will be a closed car and you will have to contrive to change your clothes on the way, because you can’t call on Ivanovitch in those duds, and you can’t walk out of this house in your good ones. It would give the landlady heart failure.
“When you’ve changed, I’ll drive you to his house, and you can make a casual call and broach the subject of a party. I’ll wait outside for you, and you can tell him that the car belongs to a friend who has gone out of town and lent it to you while he’s away.”
I assented, and we left it at that. The rest of the morning and over our lunch we discussed the best method of supplying additional tracers, in case Ivanovitch agreed to take me and Pride failed to follow the car we went in. Pride decided to have two police cars in readiness and a couple of motorcycle cops also, to make doubly sure.
As the time approached for us to start, I felt my spirits rising a little with the thought of action. And when at last I was struggling to change into a stiff shirt and a frock-coat in the confines of Pride’s hired limousine, kneeling on the floor most of the time, I began to feel nearly normal again, in spite of a terrible anxiety about Natalie and Moore and Larry.
I was ready, with my workman’s clothes neatly packed in the suit-case and the latter under the seat, by the time we reached the house of Ivanovitch. Pride was driving himself and was attired in the usual chauffeur’s livery. He pulled up nearly in front of the house and even got down and opened the door for me. “Good luck!” he whispered as I mounted the steps.
To my delight, Ivanovitch’s slant-eyed servant told me that his master was at home and he would inquire whether he was disengaged. A moment later he was back again. “Walk after me, sar. My master will look at you.”
“I’ll bet he will!” I thought, and followed the Jap or whatever he was. A moment after he left, Ivanovitch appeared.
“Well, Mr. Clayton! This is charming of you! I have thought of you so often lately” (I grinned to myself, staring at him), “and wondered what had become of you! I have been intending to try to locate you!”