The Girl and The Bill Part 20

There had been barely time for the car to slow down a little. Maku could not well have seen him without turning his head, and Orme had watched the little j.a.panese closely enough to know that he had continued to stare straight before him.

Safe on the back platform, a desire to smoke came to Orme. He found a cigar in his case and lighted it. While he was s.h.i.+elding the match, he looked over his hollowed hand and saw Maku produce a cigarette and light it. The j.a.panese had apparently wished the consolation of tobacco just as Orme had.

"An odd coincidence," muttered Orme. "I hope it wasn't mind-reading." And he smiled as he drew a mouthful of smoke.

Lincoln Park slid by them on the left. The car was getting well down into the city. Suddenly Maku worked along to the end of his seat and got down on the running-board. The conductor pulled the bell. The car stopped and the Oriental jumped off.

The action had been so quick that Orme, taken off his guard, had not had time to get off first. He, therefore, remained on the car, which began to move forward again. Looking after Maku, he saw that the j.a.panese, glancing neither to right nor to left, was making off down the side street, going west; so he in turn stepped to the street, just as Maku disappeared beyond the corner. He hurried quickly to the side street and saw Maku, half a block ahead, walking with short, rapid steps. How had Maku got so far? He must have run while Orme was retracing the way to the corner. And yet Maku seemed to have had no suspicion that he was being followed.

The chase led quickly to a district of poor houses and shops--an ill-looking, ill-smelling district, where every shadow seemed ominous.

Whenever they approached a corner, Orme hurried forward, running on his toes, to shorten the distance in the event that Maku turned, but the course continued straight until Orme began to wonder whether they were not getting near to the river, one branch of which, he knew, ran north through the city.

At last Maku turned into an alley, which cut through the middle of a block. This was something which Orme had not expected. He ran forward and peered down the dark, unpleasant pa.s.sage. There was his man, barely visible, picking a careful way through the ash-heaps and avoiding the pestilential garbage-cans.

Orme followed, and when Maku turned west again at the next street, swung rapidly after him and around the corner, with the full expectation of seeing him hurrying along, half a block away. But no one was in sight.

Had he slipped into one of the near-by buildings?

While Orme was puzzling, a voice at his elbow said, "h.e.l.lo!"

He turned with a start. Flattened in a shadowed niche of the wall beside him was Maku!

"h.e.l.lo!" the j.a.panese said again.

"Well?" exclaimed Orme sharply, trying to make the best of the situation.

"You mus' not follow me." The j.a.panese spoke impa.s.sively.

"Follow you?"

"I saw you in a mirror at the other end of car."

So that was it! Orme remembered no mirror, but the j.a.panese might apply the word to the reflecting surface of one of the forward windows.

"You lit a match," continued Maku. "I saw. Then I come here, to find if you follow."

Orme considered. Now that he was discovered, it would be futile to continue the chase, since Maku, naturally, would not go to his destination with Orme at his heels. But he said:

"You can't order me off the streets, Maku."

"I know. If you follow, then we walk an' walk an' walk--mebbe till nex'

week." Orme swore under his breath. It was quite clear that the little j.a.panese would never rejoin the man who had the papers until he was sure that he had shaken off his pursuer. So Orme simply said:

"Good-night."

Disappointed, baffled, he turned eastward and walked with long strides back toward the car-line. He did not look to see whether Maku was behind him. That did not matter now. He had missed his second opportunity since the other j.a.panese escaped him in the university campus.

Crossing North Clark Street a block north of the point at which he and Maku had left the car, he continued lakeward, coming out on the drive only a short distance from the Pere Marquette, and a few minutes later, after giving the elevator-boy orders to call him at eight in the morning, he was in his apartment, with the prospect of four hours of sleep.

But there was a final question: Should he return to the all-night restaurant near the car-barns and try to learn from the cas.h.i.+er the address which Maku had sought? Surely she would have forgotten the name by this time. Perhaps it was a j.a.panese name, and, therefore, the harder to remember. True, she might remember it; if it were a peculiar combination of letters, the very peculiarity might have fixed it in her mind. And if he hesitated to go back there now, the slim chance that the name remained with her would grow slimmer with every added moment of delay. He felt that he ought to go. He was dog-tired, but--he remembered the girl's anxiety. Yes, he would go; with the bare possibility that the cas.h.i.+er would remember and would be willing to tell him what she remembered, he would go.

He took up his hat and stepped toward the door. At that moment he heard a sound from his bedroom. It was an unmistakable snore. He tip-toed to the bedroom door and peered within. Seated in an arm-chair was a man. He was distinctly visible in the light which came in from the sitting-room, and it was quite plain that he was sound asleep and breathing heavily. And now for the second time his palate vibrated with the raucous voice of sleep.

Orme switched on the bedroom lights. The man opened his eyes and started from the chair.

"Who are you?" demanded Orme.

"Why--the detective, of course."

"Detective?"

"Sure--regular force."

"Regular force?"

The stranger pulled back his coat and displayed his nickeled star.

"But what are you doing here?" gasped Orme, amazed.

"Why, a foreign fellow came to the chief and said you wanted a man to keep an eye on your quarters to-night--and the chief sent me. I was dozing a bit--but I'm a light sleeper. I wake at the least noise."

Orme smiled reminiscently, thinking of the snore. "Tell me," he said, "was it Senhor Alcatrante who had you sent?"

"I believe that _was_ his name." He was slowly regaining his sleep-benumbed wits. "That reminds me," he continued. "He gave me a note for you."

An envelope was produced from an inside pocket. Orme took it and tore it open. The sheet within bore the caption, "Office of The Chief of Police,"

and the few lines, written beneath in fine script, were as follows:

"Dear Mr. Orme:

"You will, I am sure, pardon my seeming over-anxiety for your safety, and the safety of Poritol's treasure, but I cannot resist using my influence to see that you are well-protected to-night by what you in America call 'a plain-clothes man.' I trust that he will frighten away the Yellow Peril and permit you to slumber undisturbed. If you do not wish him inside your apartment, he will sit in the hall outside your door.

"With all regard for your continued good health, believe me, dear Mr. Orme,

"Yours, etc., etc.,

"Pedro Alcatrante."

In view of everything that had happened since the note was penned, Orme smiled a grim smile. Alcatrante must have been very anxious indeed; and yet, considering that the minister knew nothing of Orme's encounter with the j.a.panese and his meeting with the girl, the sending of the detective might naturally have been expected to pa.s.s as an impressive, but friendly, precaution.

The detective was rapidly losing his self-a.s.surance. "I had only been asleep for a moment," he said.

"Yes?" Orme spoke indifferently. "Well, you may go now. There is no longer any need of you here."

"But my instructions----"

"Were given under a misapprehension. My return makes your presence unnecessary. Good-night--or good-morning, rather." He nodded toward the door.

The detective hesitated. "Look a here!" he suddenly burst out. "I never saw you before."