[Illustration]
ALLAN could scarcely believe his eyes. The detective certainly ran into
the alley, and there seemed to be no escape from the alley save by the
flight of wooden steps running up the side of the building on the left.
These steps were in full view to the top, and it certainly was
impossible that Dobbs should have mounted these in the brief moments
that had elapsed before Allan reached the point from which he could see
them.
For several minutes Allan stood there in perplexity. Then he walked as
far as the corner and back again to the alley. Still no sign of Dobbs. A
Chinaman in a tea-shop came to the door and stared at Allan. Other
Chinamen across the way seemed to be wondering what he wanted there. Two
barefooted Italian boys stopped, and very deliberately examined the
camera and Allan.
Allan again walked to the corner, and as he turned he saw a little
ragged boy enter the alley, and he lost no time in retracing his steps.
But when he reached the alley the boy was not to be seen. He, too, had
melted away.
Allan then determined to settle this mystery if he did nothing else, and
to wait there until another figure attempted to elude him. “I’ll follow
them,” he said to himself.
The Chinaman in the tea-shop saw Allan take his stand at the curb
opposite the alley. For five minutes or more he stood there watching the
life of the street, peering at the strange signs and banners and
balconies. He looked toward Chatham Square, from which came the clatter
of the elevated trains and the roar of street traffic. Occasionally he
turned to the alley as if expecting to see Dobbs reappear from its
shadowy depths.
Once, when his eyes turned to the alley, he saw a man with a red shirt
shambling toward him, a lame man who leaned against the sides of the
alley to support himself. But it was impossible to see where he had come
from. The mystery was as deep as ever—as deep as the alley.
Presently a woman who passed him with a bundle of clothes entered the
alley with a rolling step, and Allan instantly followed her, to the
evident perplexity of the Chinaman in the tea-shop. He followed so
closely at the woman’s heels in his determination not to let her melt
out of his sight, that the woman glanced back at him over her shoulder
in suspicious inquiry.
Then Allan discovered what many another discovered long ago, for when
the woman reached what had appeared to be the end of the alley, she
turned to the right, and the boy, following, found himself in another
alley running at right angles to the first.
It seemed very absurd that he had not thought of this before. Several
doors opened into this second alley, and through one of these the woman
passed with her bundle.
Allan went straight ahead into the cross street upon which the alley
opened. If Dobbs had been playing a trick upon him, it might be that he
was waiting here somewhere. But there was no sign of the detective.
Whether it was a joke or not, Allan made up his mind not to worry any
more over finding Dobbs. Possibly the detective might come back to the
place from which he had disappeared. Perhaps he was in one of these
houses. But there was no way of telling where he was, or when he would
come if he did come. Allan had been in New York before. He knew his way
to the Grand Central Station. That did not trouble him. Yet he was
disappointed in losing so good a guide as Dobbs.
However, there were still two hours of picture-making daylight left, and
he determined to use these as best he might on his own account. They had
not lingered in Chatham Square, and Allan walked again in that
direction, and down into Chatham Street to Newspaper Row and the City
Hall. On his way he came across a pretzel man with a store of salty
pretzels strung on a stick.
In City Hall Park Allan found a group that excited his interest. The
group of men and boys were in a circle, and made up such a good picture
that Allan sighted his camera at a distance of twenty feet and pressed
the trigger. Then he went forward to satisfy his curiosity.
[Illustration:
“The group of men and boys in a circle.”
]
“What’s the matter?” Allan asked of a man who was turning away.
“Craps,” answered the man, grinning.
Pressing forward into the group, Allan heard the click of pennies and
caught a glimpse of a boy’s grimy hand tossing some dice on the stones.
When some one uttered a peculiar exclamation, the owner of the grimy
hand and half a dozen other boys darted out of the centre of the crowd,
and fled in great haste, leaving on the stones one of the dice, which an
onlooker picked up. Then Allan understood that the boys had been
gambling and that some one had sighted a policeman; a fact which gave
him food for thought as he crossed the square again and walked up Centre
Street. He had determined to move again in the direction of the Grand
Central.
While he was thinking of the boys and the policeman and how much of life
in this part of New York seemed to be made up of a battle between the
two, he caught sight of the Tombs prison, which had been half torn down
and patched up again since he saw it once before.
It was while he was picturing the Tombs from the corner of Franklin
Street that a boy who had watched everything he did from the moment he
stopped there, tapped him on the sleeve, and said, “Say, d’yer want a
good picture?” The boy tossed his head in the direction of Baxter Street
with a wink so jolly that Allan concluded that the suggested subject
must be amusing at least, but he followed the boy for the space of half
a block, when the boy, who had been trotting ahead, halted with a laugh
before the steps of a dirty, empty-looking house.
On the steps was what appeared from a little distance like a bundle of
soiled rags; but when Allan drew near he saw that there was a living
creature in the rags,—an old woman lying as if she had fallen there, a
rumpled black bonnet in her lap, her head resting against the rail, and
her yellow, wrinkled face upturned to the sun.
The boy giggled as if he thought it all a vast joke; but Allan shuddered
and looked about as if in wonder that no one had come to help the woman;
and when he saw a fat policeman strolling toward him he hurried forward
to say: “Officer, here’s a sick woman. Shouldn’t some one get her out of
the sun? She may be dying.”
The policeman looked at Allan with an expression which Allan did not
understand. For a moment the policeman looked at the woman; then he spat
into the street, and said, “I don’t think she’s dyin’ yet,” smiled at
Allan, and continued his walk.
Allan’s face grew hot, and he wanted to shout, “You’re a brute!” after
the policeman, when a girl came out of the doorway of the house where
the woman lay, and seeing the object on the steps, came forward and
began shaking the woman as if to arouse her. The girl had a sad face.
Allan thought she looked as if she had cried very often.
The woman opened her eyes finally, and Allan, placing his camera on the
steps, helped the woman to rise, and by the aid of Allan and the girl
the woman tottered up the steps and through the doorway.
“We live upstairs,” said the sad-faced girl, quietly. Allan knew that
this was a request to help a little longer. It was hard work on the
stairs, for the steps were steep and narrow, and the old woman trembled
violently.
When they had reached the top, the girl, with a grateful look, said,
“I’m much obliged.” The old woman did not speak. As he came downstairs
an ugly girl with a baby in her arms said to Allan, “Mrs. Grimmins is
drinkin’ very hard again.”
Allan went out without a word. He was so much upset that he did not
notice at first that his camera had gone. Almost at the moment when he
did discover his loss, he saw the camera in the hands of a boy who was
scudding around the corner.
[Illustration:
“He caught sight of the Tombs prison.”
]
Allan was the best runner in the Hazenfield high school nine, and a
hundred feet beyond the corner he came upon a group of boys who had the
camera between them, and who in another moment would have been out of
sight in one of the alleys.
“I’ll take that,” said Allan to a big, rough fellow who had his fingers
on the carrying strap.
“Who said so?” was the response.
Allan caught hold of the camera, but the big fellow held fast, and gave
Allan a violent push with his left hand. A little crowd sprang up around
Allan instantly, and several of the boys began to jostle him and to pull
at his coat.
Allan knew that in trouble of this sort it was necessary to get rid of
the biggest enemy first, and, still holding the camera with his left
hand, he struck his biggest enemy squarely in the face. As the other
fell sprawling over the sill of a grocer’s shop, Allan wrested the
camera free, and, turning about, he struck quickly at two of his other
assailants, clearing a space about him.
It was a very uneven affair, for Allan was hampered by the camera. Each
of the others had two hands to his one. But Allan fought furiously, and
might have made a very good defence with his single hand had not his big
enemy, regaining his feet, approached Allan from behind, and, throwing
his arms about him, flung him to the walk.
“Soak him, Pete!” yelled several of the boys, gathering for a chance to
use their feet.
Pete was powerful, but in agility he was no match for Allan. In a moment
Allan had Pete under him; but he had lost hold of the camera.
One of the boys, with a shout, grasped the black box and started to run.
He did run—plump into the hands of a policeman.
“The cop!”
The crowd melted in a second’s time. Only Allan, Pete, and the boy who
had the camera, remained to give an account of the affair.
For a moment Allan thought it was the same policeman he had seen on the
other street. But it was not. This new policeman held fast to the boy
who had the camera, and who seemed to be wishing that he didn’t have it.
“They have been trying to steal my camera!” cried Allan, adjusting his
crushed hat.
“He lies!” roared Pete.
“Well,” said the policeman, lazily, and as if there was nothing exciting
about the incident, “I’ll take you all in till we talk it over, hey?”
The boy with the camera began to whimper. “I was only takin’ care of
it!” he cried.
“I never touched it!” protested Pete. “He stole it hisself!”
“Let’s take a walk,” said the policeman, holding the small boy and Pete
each by the collar. “You walk ahead,” he said to Allan. “Do you mean
that you are going to arrest _me_?” demanded Allan.
“I mean that you’re goin’ to walk,” returned the policeman, using Pete
to push Allan forward; and the policeman with his three prisoners moved
toward Elizabeth Street.
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