"Nothin'. There ain't any black hand. It's all dope. Just a signature that any dago uses, like 'unknown friend.'"
"You ought to know," said I, "but here we are with this man hanging around. Take it or leave it. I should think there might be a story in it merely from his side, now that you can really connect him with the assault. Anyhow, I'm going after him."
"All right," Mac said, "I'm with you. Good afternoon, Miss Tabor."
"Good-by," she called after us; and I thought that she watched us from the window.
We pursued a trolley car and settled down panting on the rear seat. Maclean lay back in a meditative silence, his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets, his shoulders hunched forward and his hat on the back of his head, staring before him where his feet loomed up in the distance. At the inn he suddenly straightened himself and slid off the car.
"I thought we were going up to town?" I said as I followed.
He glowered hollowly at me above a cavernous grin. "We are. But not in those flannels or that nice new college rah-rah shirt. We'd have the whole place wonderin' what you wanted, and the mothers showin' their little ones how a real gentleman ought to look."
"But you're respectable enough," I protested, laughing. "Are we both going to be disguised?"
"Disguise nothin'. You just want to cut out the comedy-chorus-man, you see? Put on a jersey, or anyhow a collar that don't meet in the middle, an' old shoes. Me, I look low-life anyway."
I rebelled when he rolled my gray suit into a ball and jumped on it, in the interest of realism. But at last we got started. On the car, Mac unfolded his plan of campaign.