“There’ll be only one on the job, if we are, and I’ll keep him busy to-morrow morning. You go to the market as usual, then go into that big department store, Ahearn & McManus’. There’s a mail chute there, next the notion counter on the ground floor. Buy a spool of thread or somethin’, and while you’re waitin’ for change, drop the letter in the box. You used to be pretty slick in department stores, Mame––”
“Smoothest shoplifter in New York until I got palsy!” she interrupted proudly, an unaccustomed glow on her sallow face. “I’ll do it, Wally; I know I can!”
The next morning Alfred Hicks was a little late in getting to his work at the bank––so late, in fact, that he had only time to wave a cordial greeting to his new friends in their cages as he passed. He paused, however, that evening, with a pot of flowering bloom for Mrs. Pennold’s dingy, not over-clean window-sill, and a packet of tobacco which he shared generously with his host. He talked much, with the garrulous self-confidence of youth, but did not mention the matter of the securities, and left the crafty couple completely disarmed.
Neither on entering nor leaving did Hicks appear to notice a short, swarthy figure loitering in the shadow of a dejected-looking ailanthus tree near the corner. 47 It would have appeared curious, therefore, that the lurking figure followed the bank-clerk almost to his lodgings, had it not been for the fact that just before Jefferson Place was reached the figure sidled up to Hicks’ side and whispered:
“No news yet, Morrow. Pennold went this morning to old Loui the Grabber and tried to borrow money from him, but didn’t get it. I heard the whole talk. Then he went to Tanbark Pete’s and got a ten-spot. After that, he divided his time between two saloons, where he played dominoes and pinochle, and his own house. I’ve got to report to H. B. when I’m sure the subject is safe for the night. Have you found anything yet?”
“Only that I’ve got him on the run. If he knows where our man is, Suraci, he’ll go after him in a day or two. Meantime, tell H. B., in case I don’t get a chance to let him know, that the securities stunt went, all right, and my end of it is O. K.”
The next day, and the following, Pennold did indeed set for the young Italian detective a swift pace. He departed upon long rambles, which started briskly and ended aimlessly; he called upon harmless and tedious acquaintances, from Jamaica to Fordham; he went––apparently and ostentatiously to look for a position as janitor––to many office-buildings in lower Manhattan, which he invariably entered and left by different doors. In the evenings he sat blandly upon his own stoop, smoking and chatting amiably if monosyllabically with his wife and their new-found friend, Alfred Hicks, while his indefatigable shadow glowered apparently unnoticed from the gloom of the ailanthus tree.
On Thursday morning, however, Pennold betook himself leisurely to the nearest subway station, and there the real trial of strength between him and his unseen 48 antagonist began. From the Brooklyn Bridge station he rode to the Grand Central; then with a speed which belied his physical appearance, he raced across the bridge to the downtown platform, and caught a train for Fourteenth Street. There he swiftly turned north to Seventy-second Street––then to the Grand Central, again to Ninety-sixth, and so on, doubling from station to station until finally he felt that he must be entirely secure from pursuit.
He alighted at length at a station far up in the Bronx, and after looking carefully about he started off toward the west, where the mushroom growth of the new city sprang up in rows of rococo brick and stone houses with oases of green fields and open lots between. He turned up a little lane of tiny frame houses, each set in its trim garden, and stopped at the fourth cottage.
With a last furtive backward glance, Pennold mounted the steps and rang the bell nervously. The door was opened from within so suddenly that it seemed as if the man who faced his visitor on the threshold must have been awaiting the summons. He stepped quickly out, shutting the door behind him, and for a short space the two stood talking in low tones––Pennold eagerly, insistently, the other man evasively, slowly, as if choosing his words with care. He was as erect as Pennold was shambling and stoop-shouldered, and although gray and lined of features, his eyes were clear and more steady, his chin more firm, his whole bearing more elastic and forceful.