“Around a bend in the path I hid behind a clump of bushes and waited until they had passed, then tailed them again. I saw him produce the locket and chain at last, and offer them to her. She protested and took a lot of persuading; but he prevailed upon her and she let him clasp it about her neck and kiss her. After that––Good Lord! They spooned for about two hours and never even noticed the snow which had begun to fall, while I shivered along behind. About half-past ten they made a break-away and he left her at the park gates and went on down to his rooms. I put up for the night at the Hotel Gaythorne, just across the way, and kept a look-out, but there were no further developments until early this morning. At a little after seven he left his apartment house and started up State Street as if he meant business. Of course I was after him on the jump.
“He evidently didn’t think he was watched, for he never looked around once, but made straight for a little shop near the corner of Tarleton Place. It was a stationery and tobacco store, and I was right at his heels when he entered. He leaned over the counter, and asked in a low, meaning tone for a box of Cairo cigarettes. The man gave him a long, searching glance, then turned, and reaching back of a pile of boxes on the first shelf, drew out a flat one––the size which holds twenty cigarettes. He passed it quickly over to Paddington, but not before I observed that it had been opened and rather clumsily resealed.
“Paddington handed over a quarter and left the shop without another word. He went directly to a cheap restaurant across the street, and, ordering a cup of coffee, he tore open the cigarette box. It contained only a sheet of paper, folded twice. I was at the next table, 147 too far away to read what was written upon it, but whatever it was, it seemed to give him immense satisfaction. He finished his coffee, returned to his rooms, changed his clothes, and went directly to the office of Snedecker, the man whose divorce case he is trying to trump up. Evidently he’s good for a day’s work on that, so I thought I could safely leave him at it, and report to you.”
“Humph! I’d like to have a glimpse of that communication in the cigarette box, but it isn’t of sufficient importance, on the face of it, to show our hand by having him waylaid, or searching his rooms,” Blaine cogitated aloud. “I’ll put another man on to-morrow morning. Leave the address of the tobacconist with my secretary on your way out, and if there is another message to-morrow, he’ll get it first. You needn’t do anything more on this Paddington matter; I think the other end needs your services more; and since you’ve already broken ground up there, you’ll be able to do better than anyone else. I want you to return to the Bronx, get back your old room, if you can, and stick close to the Brunells.”
Back in his old rooms at Mrs. Quinlan’s, Guy sat in the window-seat at dusk, impatiently awaiting the appearance of a slender, well-known figure. The rain, which had set in early in the afternoon, had turned to sleet, and as the darkness deepened, the rays from a solitary street lamp gleamed sharply upon the pavement as upon an unbroken sheet of ice.
Presently the spare, long-limbed form of James Brunell emerged from the gloom and disappeared within the door of this little house opposite. Morrow observed that the man’s step lacked its accustomed jauntiness and spring, and he plodded along wearily, as if utterly preoccupied 148 with some depressing meditation. A light sprang up in the front room on the ground floor, but after a few moments it was suddenly extinguished, and Brunell appeared again on the porch. He closed the door softly behind him, and strode quickly down the street. There was a marked change in his bearing, a furtiveness and eager haste which ill accorded with his manner of a short time before.
Scarcely had Brunell vanished into the encroaching gloom, when his daughter appeared. She, too, approached wearily, and on reaching the little sagging gate she paused in surprised dismay at the air of detached emptiness the house seemed to exude. Then a little furry object scurried around the porch corner and precipitated itself upon her. She stooped swiftly, gathered up the kitten in her arms and went slowly into the house.
Morrow ate his supper in absent-minded haste, and as soon as he decently could, he made his way across the street.
Emily opened the door in response to his ring and greeted him with such undisguised pleasure and surprise that his honest heart quickened a beat or two, and it was with difficulty that he voiced the plausible falsehood concerning his loss of position, and return to his former abode.
Under the light in the little drawing-room, he noticed that she looked pale and careworn, and her limpid, childlike eyes were veiled pathetically with deep, blue shadows. As he looked at her, however, a warm tint dyed her cheeks and her head drooped, while the little smile still lingered about her lips.