"Well you never know who may be tapping the wire."
"Very wise precaution. What is it, Tommy--I mean Whitcomb?"
"I got a report to make."
"Fire away."
"Can't tell you over the phone. It's too important. Say, Mr.
Robinson, I got what you sent me after all right."
"Good boy!"
"Want me to come to the hotel?"
Jack not knowing if Bobo and Miriam would be out of the way, said "No."
He considered a moment. "Meet me at Harmon Evers' shop, number -- East
Twenty-Ninth street. In half an hour."
The half hour gave Jack time to get to Evers' and change his make-up.
It was not yet eight o'clock.
Evers evinced a strong interest in Tommy when he arrived. "Comical
little fellow, isn't he?" he said. "That wiry, blonde hair betokens an
enterprising character. These boys of the street learn to think for
themselves early."
Tommy and Jack did not discuss their business of course, until they had
left the shop. Outside Jack said:
"Do you mean to say you have spotted the house where the old man lives?"
"Not where he lives, but where he changes his clothes."
"Good man! Where is it?"
"Forty-Eighth street, near Seventh avenue."
"We'll go there," said Jack, and looked up and down for a taxi-cab.
"You can tell me the whole story on the way. We'll stop at the
Madagascar for a gun and a pair of handcuffs in case we meet our
friend."
When they were seated in the cab Tommy began his story. "I was
thinking over everything you told me, and it seemed to me I wouldn't
have a very good show to trail the old man by myself. Maybe he knew my
face you see, and anyway the uniform was a give away. So I got my
cousin to help me. He ain't working now. He's bigger'n me. We're
going partners in the detective business when we get the coin to open
up an office."
"I described him the man I was after, and placed him acrost the street
from the office, with instructions to follow me if I come up, and pick
up the trail if I had to drop it."
"Well, about half past two yes'day, old man come into the office for
his package all right. Soon as I see him I slides out and waits for
him outside. Say he was cagy all right. He had a hunch he was being
trailed. Dodged in one door of the Knickerbocker and out again by
another. In the Forty-Second street building he tried to shake me by
riding in different elevators, but I stuck to him all right. Me cousin
was right there too, with his tongue hanging out."
"He took to the Subway next. Got on an up-town local at Grand Central.
I got in the next car because I thought he might reco'nize me, but me
cousin sits down right opposite him. Well after we left Times Square
station he comes into my car, gives me a hard look, and sits down
beside me. Say, me heart was going like a compressed air riveter."
"He says to me: 'Don't you work at 1118 Broadway?' and I says: 'Yes,
sir.' He says: 'I guess you worked for me sometimes,' and I looks at
him hard and makes out to reco'nize him for the first, and says: 'Yes,
sir.' He says: 'You carried a little package for me up to the Hotel
Beanvenoo yes'day.' I says: 'Yes, sir. The lady was out, so I brung
it back.'"
"'Hm!' says he, like that, and looks at me real hard for a minute, I
guess. He's got blue eyes that make holes in you like bay'nits. But
he didn't get any change off a me. Then he says real sudden-like: 'Has
anybody been trying to fix you?' 'Why no sir!' I says with a baby
stare. 'I dunno what you mean.'"
"'Where you going now?' says he. I hadda say somepin real quick. I
says: 'I gotta deliver a letter up-town.' 'Where?' 'Seventy-Second
street.' He says: 'Let me see it.' I says: ''Gainst the rules, boss.'
He laughs sneery like."
"By this time the train was pulling into Fiftieth. 'Well I get out
here' he says, sticking me with those eyes again. And there he left me
flat. What could I do. But I look and I see me cousin is hep, so I
know all ain't lost yet. As the train pulls out I see that kid foller
him up the stairs."
"Well I chases home, and changes me clo'es. I puts on the toughest rig
I got. Then I went down to Mis' Harvest's store and waited 'round.
Mis' Harvest keeps a little candy and stationery store under my house.
Me cousin and me, we never plague her like the other kids does, and she
lets us sort of stick around. We use her phone in our business. We
had agreed if we got separated, the one who lost the trail was to go to
Mis' Harvest's and wait for a call."
"Me cousin calls me up about four o'clock. He says the old man is
sitting in the Knickerbocker bar, drinking and talking to a feller, and
if I hustle maybe I can git there before he leaves. Well, I meets me
cousin outside the door of the bar, and he says the old man is still
inside. He patrols the Broadway side, and I takes the Forty-Second
street entrance, and we meet at the corner, and exchange signals.
"Bye and bye old man comes out my cousin's door, and the two of us take
after him down Broadway. At Fortieth street, old man turns real sudden
and grabs hold me cousin. There was a cop there. Old man says:
'Officer, this boy has been follerin' me all afternoon!' Cop takes a
grip on me cousin; say, maybe that kid wasn't scared! Cop says: 'What
do you want to annoy this gen'leman for?' but me cousin was mum as a
dummy! Cop says: 'Do you want to lay 'a complaint, sir?' Old man
says: 'Haven't time. Just warn him, and let him go.' So the cop boots
me cousin down the side street, and old man goes on down Broadway. But
I was right there steppin' on his heels. He never thought of looking
at me in me old clothes."
"Well now he thought he was clear of us all, and he didn't bother about
coverin' his tracks no more. He crosses Broadway, and comes back
tutter side. He only made one stop. That was in a cigar store. He
telephoned from the booth. Then he led me straight to the house on
48th near 7th, an old private house it was, that's been turned into
stores and offices. There was no elevator nor nothing.
"I couldn't foller him inside, so I waits acrost the street. He come
out in half an hour. Say, I almost missed him then. He's a rapid
change artist for fair! Had a big trust on him now----"
"Trust?" interrupted Jack.
"You know, corporation, bow-window----" Tommy illustrated.
"I see, go on."
"But he looked twenty years younger. Real black hair now, little black
moustache, white face--like a dude Eyetalian. Had a neat derby on, and
black overcoat."
"Good God!" cried Jack. "Comrade Wilde! You're sure it was the same
man."
"Certain sure! But it was a peach of a make-up. I wouldn't of got on
to it, only he didn't walk like a fat man. He didn't lean back far
enough to balance his load if it was bona-fide."
"Pretty good!" said Jack. "I never thought of that."
"Well, I took after him again, but he give me the slip at Sixth Avenue.
There was a car waiting for him there--big black limousine----"
"I know it!" said Jack ruefully.
"He hopped it, and went off down-town. There was a taxi there too, but
the shover only laughed at me, when I wanted to hire him. By the time
I satisfied him I had the price, the black car was out of sight."
"I went back to the house on Forty-eighth. There's a lady's hat store
in the basement, and a beauty parlor on the first floor. Up-stairs is
mixed offices and unfurnished rooms. It's one of those old style
walk-up houses that you can go in and out of, without being noticed. I
made out to be looking for a Mr. Webster. By asking round I found out
the old man has the third floor rear. There's no sign on the door nor
nothing. The other tenants thinks it's a traveler that just keeps his
samples there. None of them don't know him."
33
With a brief stop at the Madagascar for the purpose mentioned, Jack and
his diminutive assistant were carried to the house on Forty-Eighth
street. Tommy led the way to the third floor rear. Above the parlor
floor no changes had been made in the old-fashioned residence, beyond
letting a few panes of glass in the door panels to light the hall. But
the door Tommy indicated was of the original solid wood. Jack knocked
without receiving any answer. There was no sound of any movement
within.
Jack had made up his mind that the boldest way of entering would be the
simplest. He therefore sent Tommy in search of a locksmith while he
remained silently on guard in the hall. When the workman appeared Jack
explained that he had inadvertently locked his keys in his room, and
instructed him to pick the lock. When the man set to work, Jack
privately dispatched Tommy down into the yard to keep an eye on the
rear windows.
Opening the door was no great task. Jack looked inside with a fast
beating heart. His first general impression was of a simply furnished
office. He dismissed the locksmith, and recalled Tommy by a signal
from the window.
The principal object in the room was an old-fashioned flat-topped desk
so placed between the windows that the light would fall over the user's
shoulders. The desk was covered with papers, and the merest glance was
enough to show Jack that he had here the conclusive evidence that he
had been so long in search of. He decided to call in official help
now. There was a telephone on the desk, but he hesitated trusting his
secret to it. Instead, he wrote a note to the Deputy Commissioner,
asking for two plain clothes men to be sent him at once. This he
entrusted to Tommy, instructing him to take a taxicab to police
headquarters.
The door was fitted with a spring lock of the usual pattern. It had
not been injured, and when the door closed it locked itself. As soon
as he was left alone Jack set about making a careful examination of the
place. He figured that should the owner return, the sound of the key
in the lock would give him sufficient warning. He laid his automatic
ready to his hand on the desk. He was careful to make no sound that
would warn any one who might stop to listen at the door before entering.
First he took a general survey. The two windows of the room looked out
on an array of back yards and on the rear of a long row of similar
buildings in the next street. One of the windows opened on a fire
escape. At one's right as one faced the windows was an old-fashioned
fireplace: across the room were two doors, the lower giving on the
stair hall, the upper presumably on the hall room adjoining. The
latter door was screwed to its frame.
At the other end of the room from the windows was a large closet.
Jack, fearful of being trapped by the return of the owner merely looked
in here. It was set out with a bureau and mirror, and from pegs around
the walls depended an extraordinary assortment of clothes. Jack saw
that there was a complete separate outfit on each peg; fine clothes and
mean, native and foreign; a policeman's uniform, and a complete
turn-out for a woman. Above the pegs a shelf ran around, and over each
peg was a box which presumably contained the smaller articles to
complete each make-up.
Interesting as was this exhibit, the papers in connection with the desk
quickly drew Jack away from it. Behind the desk there was an object
which whetted his curiosity to the highest degree. This was an oaken
cabinet with drawers of the kind that are used to contain modern card
index systems. Jack eagerly pulled out the top drawer.
Inside was a set of large cards, each headed by a name in the usual
manner, and with various particulars as to that individual entered
beneath. As the scheme became clear to him Jack's heart beat fast. He
could scarcely credit the evidence of his senses. It appeared that he
held in his hands a complete record of the operations of "Mr. B." What
strange freak of vanity could have led the criminal to collect such a
mass of damning evidence!
Here was one card chosen at random.