“I see, a sport, eh?” Pennold darted a quick glance at his wife. “Well, don’t let it get the best of you, young feller. Remember what I told you about Jimmy Brunell––at least, what the report of him was. If I hear anything of where he is, I’ll let the bank know.”
“I’ll be getting on; I’m late now––” Morrow paused on the bottom step of the little porch and turned. “See you again, Mr. Pennold, and your wife, if you’ll let me. I pass by here often––I’ve been boarding with Mrs. Lindsay, on Jefferson Place, for some time now. By the way, have you seen the sporting page of the Gazette this morning? Al Goetz edits it, you know, and he gives you the straight dope. There’ll be nothing to that fight they’re pulling off Saturday night at the Zucker Athletic Club––Hennessey’ll put it all over Schnabel in the first round. Good-by! If you hear anything of this Brunell, be sure you let me or the bank know!”
For a long moment after his buoyant stride had carried him out of sight around the corner, Walter Pennold and his wife sat in thoughtful silence. Then the woman spoke.
“What d’ye think of it all, Wally?”
“Dunno.” The gentleman addressed drew from his pocket a blackened, odoriferous pipe and sucked upon it. “Must be some lay, of course. I’ll go up to the bank and find out what I can, but I don’t think that young feller, Hicks, is in on it. I’ve been in the game for forty years, and if I’m a judge, he’s no ’tec. Fool kid spendin’ more’n he earns and out for what coin he can grab. I’ll look up that landlady of his, too, Mame; and if he’s on the level there, and at the bank––”
“And if those securities are at the bank, he ought to be willin’ to come in with us on a share,” the wife supplemented shrewdly. “But it seems like some kind of a gag to me. You knew all Jimmy Brunell’s jobs till he got religion or somethin’, and turned honest––I can’t think of any old crook who’d turn over that money to him, two hundred thousand cold, because his conscience 43 hurt him, can you? You know, too, how decent and respectable Jimmy’s been livin’ all these years, putting up a front for the sake of that daughter of his; suppose this was a put-up game to catch him––what do the bulls want him for?”
“I ain’t no mind-reader. I’ll look up this business of securities, and then if the young feller’s talked straight, we’ll try to work it through him, if we can get to him, and I guess we can, so long as I ain’t lost the gift of the gab in twenty years. We’ll be as good, sorrowing heirs as ever Jimmy Brunell could find anywheres.”
Before Walter Pennold could reach the bank, however, an unimpeachably official letter arrived from that institution, confirming the news imparted by the bank-clerk concerning the securities left for James Brunell. Pennold, going to the bank ostensibly to assure those in authority there of his cordial willingness to assist in the search for the heir, incidentally assured himself of Alfred Hicks’ seemingly legitimate occupation. A later visit to Mrs. Lindsay of 46 Jefferson Place convinced him that the young man had lived there for some months and was as generous, open-handed, easy-going a boarder as that excellent woman had ever taken into her house. Just what price was paid by Henry Blaine to Mrs. Lindsay for that statement is immaterial to this narrative, but it suffices that Walter Pennold returned to the sharp-tongued wife of his bosom with only one obstacle in his thoughts between himself and a goodly share of the coveted two hundred thousand dollars.
That obstacle was an extremely healthy fear of Jimmy Brunell. It was true that there had been no connection between them in years, but he remembered Jimmy’s attitude toward the “snitcher,” as well as toward the man who “held out” on his pals; and behind 44 his cupidity was a lurking caution which was made manifest when he walked into the kitchen and found Mrs. Pennold with her shriveled arms immersed in the washtub.