The Girl and The Bill Part 21

"Nor I you," replied Orme.

"Then how do I know that you are Mr. Orme? You may be the very chap I was to keep out, far as I know."

"Sure enough, I may be," said Orme dryly, adding--"But I am not. Now go."

The detective narrowed his eyebrows. "Not without identification."

"Ask the night-clerk," exclaimed Orme impatiently. "Can't you see that I don't wish to be bothered any longer?"

He went over to the door and threw it open.

"Come," he continued. "Well, here then"--as the detective did not move--"here's my card. That ought to do you."

He took a card from his pocket-case and offered it to the detective, who, after scrutinizing it for a moment, let it fall to the floor.

"Oh, it's all right, I guess," he said. "But what shall I say to the chief?"

"Simply say that I didn't need you any longer."

The detective picked up his hat and went.

"Thank Heaven!" exclaimed Orme as he closed the door. "But I wonder why I didn't notice his hat. It was lying here in plain sight."

He went to the telephone and spoke to the clerk. "Did you let that detective into my apartment?" he asked.

"Why, yes, Mr. Orme. He was one of the regular force, and he said that you wanted him here. I called up the chief's office, and the order was corroborated. I meant to tell you when you came in, but you pa.s.sed the desk just while I was down eating my supper. The elevator-boy let you in, didn't he?"

"Yes. Never mind, it's all right. Good-night."

But when Orme examined his traveling-bag, he found that someone had evidently made a search through it. Nothing had been taken, but the orderly arrangement of his effects had been disturbed. His conclusion was that Alcatrante had bribed the fellow to go much farther than official zeal demanded. Doubtless the minister had paid the detective to hunt for a marked five-dollar bill and make a copy of whatever was written on it--which would have been quite a safe proceeding for the detective, if he were not caught at the task. A subtle man, Alcatrante; but no subtler than the j.a.panese.

Dismissing the incident from his mind, Orme again made ready to return to the all-night restaurant. He paused at the door, however, to give the situation a final a.n.a.lysis. Maku had lost something. After hunting for it vainly, he had gone to the city directory for information which appeared to satisfy him. Then what he lost must have been an address. How would he have been likely to lose it?

Orme's fatigue was so great that he repeated the question to himself several times without seeing any meaning in it. He forced his tired brain back to the first statement. Maku had lost something. Yes, he had lost something. What was it he had lost? Oh, yes, a paper.

It was futile. His brain refused to work.

Maku had lost a paper. A paper?

"Ah!" Orme was awake now.

"How stupid!" he exclaimed.

For he had entirely forgotten the paper which he had taken from the pocket of the unconscious Maku, there on the campus! He had thrust it into his pocket without looking at it, and in the excitement of his later adventures it had pa.s.sed utterly from his memory.

Another moment and he had the paper in his hand. His fingers shook as he unfolded it, and he felt angry at his weakness. Yes, there it was--the address--written in an unformed hand. If he had only thought of the paper before, he would have been saved a deal of trouble--would have had more sleep. He read it over several times--"Three forty-one, North Parker Street"--so that he would remember it, if the paper should be lost.

"I'm glad Maku didn't write it in j.a.panese!" he exclaimed.

CHAPTER IX

NUMBER THREE FORTY-ONE

When Orme was aroused by the ringing of his telephone-bell the next morning and heard the clerk's voice, saying over the wire, "Eight o'clock, sir," it seemed as if he had been asleep but a few minutes.

During breakfast he reviewed the events of the preceding evening. Strange and varied though they had been, his thoughts chiefly turned to the girl herself, and he shaped all his plans with the idea of pleasing her. The work he had set for himself was to get the envelope and deliver it to the girl. This plan involved the finding of the man who had escaped from the tree.

The search was not so nearly blind as it would have been if Orme had not found that folded slip of paper in Maku's pocket. The address, "three forty-one North Parker Street," was unquestionably the destination at which Maku had expected to meet friends.

To North Parker Street, then, Orme prepared to go. Much as he longed to see the girl again, he was glad that they were not to make this adventure together, for the reputation of North Parker Street was unsavory.

Orme found his way readily enough. There was not far to go, and he preferred to walk. But before he reached his destination he remembered that he had promised Alcatrante and Poritol to meet them at his apartment at ten o'clock.

His obligation to the two South Americans seemed slight, now that the bill had pa.s.sed from his hands and that he knew the nature of Poritol's actions. Nevertheless, he was a man of his word, and he hurried back to the Pere Marquette, for the hour was close to ten. He was influenced to some extent by the thought that Poritol and Alcatrante, on learning how he had been robbed of the bill, might unwittingly give him a further clue.

No one had called for him. He waited till ten minutes past the hour, before he concluded that he had fulfilled his part of the bargain with them. Though he did not understand it, he attached no especial significance to their failure to appear.

Once again he went to North Parker Street. Three forty-one proved to be a notion shop. Through the window he saw a stout woman reading a newspaper behind the counter. When he entered she laid the paper aside and arose languidly, as though customers were rather a nuisance than a blessing.

She was forty, but not fair.

Orme asked to see a set of studs. She drew a box from a show-case and spread the a.s.sortment before him.

He selected a set and paid her, offering a ten-dollar bill. She turned to a cash register and made change--which included a five-dollar bill.

Orme could hardly believe his eyes. The bill which she placed in his hand bore the written words: "Remember Person you pay this to."

He turned it over. In the corner was a familiar set of abbreviations.

There was no doubt about it. The bill was the same which had been taken from him, and which he had last seen in the possession of Maku.

What an insistent piece of green paper that marked bill was! It had started him on this remarkable series of adventures. It had introduced excitable little Poritol and the suave Alcatrante to his apartment. It had made him the victim of the attack by the two j.a.panese. It had brought the girl into his life. And now it came again into his possession just at the moment to prove that he was on the right track in his search for Maku and the man who had the papers. The queerest coincidence was that the bill would never have come into his possession at all, had it not been for his first meeting with the girl--who at that very time was herself searching for it. The rubbing of his hat against the wheel of her car--on so little thing as that had hinged the events that followed.

"This is strange," Orme addressed the woman.

"It doesn't hurt it any," said the woman, indifferently.

"I know that. But it's a curious thing just the same."

The woman raised her shoulders slightly, and began to put away the stock she had taken out for Orme's benefit.

"Who paid this to you?" persisted Orme.

"How should I remember? I can't keep track of all the persons that come in the store during the day."

"But I should think that anything so queer as this----" He saw that he could get nothing from her except by annoying her.