"Boss," cried the darky, "Ise gone!"
He was, too. His splay feet in their broken shoes fairly spurned the sidewalk as he darted northward, boring his way through the lanes of pedestrians, knocking people aside out of their stride and followed as he went by a wake of curses and grunts and curious glances. On a street where nearly everyone trots but few gallop, the sight of a running man catches the popular interest instantly, the common theory being that the runner has done something wrong and is trying to get away, else he would not run.
The instant the negro turned his back on him, Trencher slid inside the recessed entrance of the clothing store and flattened himself against its door. If chance had timed the occurrence just right he would win the reprieve that he required for what he meant next to undertake. And sure enough, as it turned out, chance had so timed it.
For just as he pressed his bulk into the recess the man hunt manifested itself. Bursting headlong out of the front of Wallinger"s Hotel came a policeman--doubtlessly the one already seen by Trencher--and just behind the policeman a roughly dressed bearded man, and with these two, at their heels, a jostling impetuous swarm of other men, to be joined instantly by yet more men, who had run round the corner of the hotel from Thirty-ninth Street, instead of pa.s.sing through its lobby. For the veriest fraction of time they all slowed down, casting about them with their eyes for a trail to follow.
Trencher, looking slantwise to the south, could see them plainly. The foremost members of the hesitating and uncertain group were not sixty feet from him. He forgot to breathe.
Then, all together, half a dozen pointing arms were flung out to the north.
"There he goes, officer, runnin"! See "im yonder? See "im?"
With a forward surge and a great clatter of feet the hunt was renewed.
Past Trencher"s refuge, with never a look this way or that, the policeman, the bearded man, all the rest of them, went pelting along the sidewalk, giving tongue like beagles. He could have put forth his hand and touched some of them as they sped by him. Numbers of foot travellers joined in the tail of the chase. Those who did not join it faced about to watch. Knowing that for a bit he would practically be free of the danger of close scrutiny, Trencher stepped out upon the sidewalk and looking north caught a glimpse of a bent fleeing figure scuttling up Broadway a block and a half beyond.
By this trick he had broken the trail and sent the pack off on a wrong scent. So far so good. He figured the outlook after this fashion: Set upon earning the double fee promised him the deluded darky, as he could tell, was still going at top speed, unconscious of any pursuit. If he continued to maintain his gait, if none tripped him, the probabilities were he would be round the corner in Forty-fifth Street, trying to find a mythical boarding house and a mythical hall boy named Fred, before the foremost of the runners behind overtook and seized him. Then would follow shouts, yells, a babble of accusations, denials of all wrongful intent by the frightened captive and explanations by him to the policeman of his reason for running so hard.
Following on this the chase would double back on its tracks, and at once policemen in numbers, along with volunteers, would be combing the district for the real fugitive. Still, barring the unforeseen, a few minutes must intervene before this neighbourhood search would be getting under way; and meanwhile the real fugitive, calmly enough, was moving along in the rear of the rearmost of those who ran without knowing why they ran. He did not go far though--he dared not go far. Any second the darky might be tackled and thrown by someone on ahead, and besides there might be individuals close at hand who had not joined in the hue and cry, but who in some way had learned that the man so badly wanted wore such-and-such distinguishing garments.
It was because of this latter contingency that Trencher had not tried to slip back into Thirty-ninth Street. That had been his first impulse, but he discarded the thought as it came to him. His mind peopled the vicinity immediately south and east of him with potential enemies. To the north alone, in the wake of the chase, could he count upon a hope of transient security, and that would last only for so long as the negro kept going. He could not get away from the spot--yet. And still it would be the height of recklessness for him, dressed as he was, to linger there. Temporarily he must bide where he was, and in this swarming, bright-as-day place he must find a hiding place from which he could see without being seen, spy without being spied upon or suspected for what he was. Even as he calculated these obstacles he figured a possible way out of the double-ended dilemma, or at any rate he figured his next step toward safety from detection for the moment, and, with continued luck, toward ultimate escape from a perilous spot where now no measure of immunity could be either long-lived or dependable.
I have said he did not go far to reach sanctuary. To be exact he did not go the length of the block between Thirty-ninth and Fortieth. He went only as far as the Clarenden, newest and smartest, and, for the time being, most popular of typical Broadway cafes, standing three buildings north of the clothing shop, or a total distance from it, let us say, of ninety feet. It was while he traversed those ninety feet that Trencher summed up the contingencies that hedged him in and reached his conclusion.
In front of the Clarenden against the curbing stood a short line of waiting motor vehicles. With one exception they were taxicabs. At the lower end of the queue, though, was a vast gaudy limousine, a bright blue in body colour, with heavy tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of bra.s.s--and it was empty.
The chauffeur, m.u.f.fled in furs, sat in his place under the overhang of the peaked roof, with the gla.s.s slide at his right hand lowered and his head poked out as he peered up Broadway; but the car itself, Trencher saw, contained no occupant.
Trencher, drawing up alongside the limousine, was searching vainly for a monogram, a crest or a name on its varnished flank while he spoke.
"Driver," he said sharply, "whose car is this?"
"Mr. O"Gavin"s," the chauffeur answered without turning to look at the person asking the question.
Trencher played a blind lead and yet not such a very blind lead either.
Big as New York was there was likely to be but one O"Gavin in it who would have a car such as this one anch.o.r.ed in front of the Clarenden--and that would be the noted bookmaker. Trencher played his card.
"Jerome O"Gavin"s, eh?" he inquired casually as though stating a foregone conclusion.
"Yes, sir; it"s his car." And now the driver twisted his body and half-faced Trencher. "Say, boss, what"s all the row about yonder?"
"Crowd chasing a pickpocket, I imagine," said Trencher indifferently.
Then putting a touch of impatience in his voice: "Where is O"Gavin--inside?"
"Yes, sir! Said he"d be ready to go uptown at eleven. Must be near that now."
"Pretty near it. I was to meet him here at eleven myself and I thought I recognised his car."
"You"ll find him in the grill, I guess, sir," said the driver, putting into the remark the tone of deference due to someone who was a friend of his employer"s. "I understood him to say he had an appointment with some gentleman there. Was it you?"
"No, but I know who the gentleman is," said Trencher. "The other man"s not such a very good friend of mine--that"s why I"d rather wait outside for Jerome than to go in there." He made a feint at looking at his watch. "Hum, ten minutes more. Tell you what I think I"ll do, driver: I think I"ll just hop inside the car until O"Gavin comes out--better than loafing on the sidewalk, eh?"
"Just as you say. Make yourself comfortable, sir. Shall I switch on the lights?"
"No, never mind the lights, thank you." Trencher was already taking shelter within the limousine, making himself small on the wide back seat and hauling a thick rug up over his lap. Under the rug one knee was bent upward and the fingers of one hand were swiftly undoing the b.u.t.tons of one fawn-coloured spat. If the chauffeur had chanced to glance back he would have seen nothing unusual going on. The chauffeur, though, never glanced back. He was staring dead ahead again.
"Say, boss, they"ve caught the pickpocket--if that"s what he was," he cried out excitedly. "They"re bringing him back."
"Glad they nailed him," answered Trencher through the gla.s.s that was between them. He had one spat off and was now unfastening its mate.
"It looks like a n.i.g.g.e.r," added the chauffeur, supplying a fresh bulletin as the captive was dragged nearer. "It is a n.i.g.g.e.r! Had his nerve with him, trying to pull off a trick in this part of town."
Through the right-hand side window Trencher peered out as the ma.s.s moved by--in front a panting policeman with his one hand gripped fast in the collar of Trencher"s late messenger, and all about the pair and behind them a jostling, curious crowd of men and women.
"De gen"l"man dat sent me fur his bag is right down yere, I keeps tellin" you," Trencher heard the scared darky babbling as he was yanked past Trencher"s refuge.
"All right then, show him to me, that"s all," the officer was saying impatiently.
The chauffeur twisted about in his place, following the spectacle with his eyes. But Trencher had quit looking that way and was looking another way. The centre of excitement had been moved again--instead of being north of him it was now approximately ninety feet south, and he, thanks to the shift, was once more behind it. Peering through the gla.s.s he watched the entrance to the Clarenden.
There he saw what he wanted to see--a tall man in a wide-brimmed soft dark hat and a long dark topcoat going up the short flight of steps that led from the pavement into the building. Trencher wadded the spats together and rammed them down out of sight between the back cushion and the under cushion of the car seat, and with his overcoat inside out on his left arm he opened the door and stepped out of the car. This retreat had served his purpose admirably; it was time to abandon it.
"Changed my mind," he said, in explanation. "If O"Gavin doesn"t hurry up we"ll be late for an engagement we"ve got uptown. I"m going in after him."
"Yes; all right, sir," a.s.sented the chauffeur with his attention very much elsewhere.
In long steps Trencher crossed the sidewalk and ran up the steps so briskly that he pa.s.sed through the door at the top of the short flight directly behind and almost touching the tall man in the dark hat and black coat. His heart beat fast; he was risking everything practically on the possibilities of what this other man meant to do.
The other man did exactly what Trencher was hoping he would do. He turned left and made for the Clarenden"s famous Chinese lounging room, which in turn opened into the main restaurant. Trencher slipped nimbly by his quarry and so beat him to where two young women in glorified uniforms of serving maids were stationed to receive wraps outside the checking booth; a third girl was inside the booth, her job being to take over checked articles from her sister helpers.
It befell therefore that Trencher surrendered his brown derby and his short tan coat, received a pasteboard check in exchange for them and saw them pa.s.sed in over a flat shelf to be put on a hook, before the other man had been similarly served. When the other, now revealed as wearing a dinner jacket, came through the Orientalised pa.s.sageway into the lounge, Trencher was quite ready for him. In his life Trencher had never picked a pocket, but as one thoroughly versed in the professionalism of the crime world, in which he was a distinguished figure, he knew how the trick, which is the highest phase of the art of the pickpocket, is achieved.
The thing was most neatly and most naturally accomplished. As the man in the dinner coat came just opposite him Trencher, swinging inward as though to avoid collision with the end of an upholstered couch, b.u.mped into him, breast to breast.
"I beg your pardon," he said in contrite tones for his seeming awkwardness, and as he said it two darting fingers and the thumb of his right hand found and invaded the little slit of the stranger"s waistcoat pocket, whisking out the check which the stranger had but a moment before, with Trencher watching, deposited there.
"Granted--no harm done," said the man who had been jostled, and pa.s.sed on leaving Trencher still uttering apologetic sounds. Palming the precious pasteboard, which meant so much to him, Trencher stood where he was until he saw the unsuspecting victim pa.s.s on through into the cafe and join two other men, who got up from a table in the far corner near one of the front windows to greet him.
Trencher followed leisurely to where a captain of waiters stood guard at the opening in the dividing part.i.tion between the lounge and the restaurant. Before him at his approach this functionary bowed.
"Alone, sir?" he inquired obsequiously.
"Yes and no," replied Trencher; "I"m alone now but I"ll be back in half an hour with three others. I want to engage a table for four--not too close to the orchestra." He slipped a dollar bill into the captain"s hand.
"Very good, sir. What name, sir?"
"Tracy is the name," said Trencher.