For an instant Elsie’s spirit flamed in her eyes and her burning cheeks paled. Then she saw Druce coming and she turned towards him wearily, a strange quivering and drooping of her eyelids alone showing that she had heard. In the presence of her master she grew meek as a little child.
Harvey drifted back into the shadows of the jail, powerless to help her, and saw her driven away with the man who had ruined her earthly life.
Fighting his grief and despair, he went to the nearest drug-store and telephoned Miss Randall of what he had seen.
“Druce out on bail! A murderer out on bail in Chicago!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Harvey, if only you had thought to jump into a taxicab and follow them to see where they have been taken.”
“I’m no detective. I am going back to Millville. Perhaps I can get back my old job in the grocery store,” he answered grimly.
“Hello! Miss Randall! Hello! I remember the number of the machine.” He gave it.
“Good! Wait a minute till I see whose that is. Hold the wire.” She consulted her list of the automobile numbers entered in Illinois and found that this one belonged to a professional bondsman named Comstock.
She gave Harvey the man’s residence number.
“Go out there first thing in the morning and see if you can find out from the chauffeur where the machine went tonight. Keep a stiff upper lip, Mr. Spencer, you have really done splendidly.”
Harvey went early next day to the address given him, a residence of the type called stone-fronted, in a district no longer fashionable. There was a garage, but no automobile. Harvey made a careful survey of the premises without gaining ground. He saw another of Mary Randall’s aids come, linger about and go away; but remembering her advice about keeping a stiff upper lip, he stayed on. He was to be rewarded late in the afternoon.