“Well, sor, mebbe we could get away from the loikes av thim, anyhow. But if this Vining is such a clever lad, he must be a real dangerous customer, sor?”
“Shouldn’t be surprised, Larry.”
“Well, then, mebbe ’twould do ye no good to get away from him, if he was to see yer face. Mebbe he’d get ye in the long last, in any case.”
“That’s another chance we’ve got to take, Larry!”
Larry scratched his head. “Well, sor, in me spare toime I’ve been dippin’ into some of these detecative shtories. ’Tis enough to make ye laugh, some av thim is, but there was one lad, a gintleman cracksman he called himself, that had some bright ideas. And one av thim was that he wore a mask.”
“Been keeping in touch, have you, Larry?” I laughed. “But that’s a damned good idea, all the same. Go to one of the theatrical make-up stores in the West Forties this afternoon and get two of them. Then buy a kit of tools. Then go to Vining’s house and look over the lay of the land. He lives on the second floor.” And I told him the address.
“Finally, Larry,” I added, “meet me with your kit at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue at nine o’clock to-night, and do not bring a gun. If we’re going to have to injure any one, we’ve got to do it quietly. For we can’t afford any kind of publicity. That’s all, Larry.”
Natalie and I went for a ride in the Park that Thursday morning, and for a few hours I forgot my quest. Perhaps I will be accused of lack of feeling for that. But I loved and longed for my little sister none the less because Natalie had come into my life.
Only, I had led a curiously uneventful life, up to that time, aside from my experiences in the war; my knowledge of women was limited to social amenities and books; the light loves of the average young sower of wild oats had never appealed to me; and so I had to struggle against a very torrent of dammed-up longing and emotion now that I had met Natalie.
For I was wildly, hopelessly in love with her. We had only known each other for some three weeks, I know, but the thing had come on me like a very flash of revelation, and was unmistakable and not to be denied.