Chapter Seven
_The First Clue_
They did not refer to the incidents of that odd reception in New Yorkuntil they had located a small hotel for themselves, not three blocksaway. It was no cheaper, but they found a pleasant room, clean andwith electric lights. It was not until they had bathed and werepropped up in their beds for a good-night smoke, which cow-puncherslove, that Bill Gregg asked: "And what gave you the tip, Ronicky?"
"I dunno. In my business you got to learn to watch faces, Bill.Suppose you sit in at a five-handed game of poker. One gent sayseverything with his face, while he's picking up his cards. Anothergent don't say a thing, but he shows what he's got by the way he movesin his chair, or the way he opens and shuts his hands. When you saidsomething about our wad I seen the taxi driver blink. Right after thathe got terrible friendly and said he could steer us to a friend of histhat could put us up for the night pretty comfortable. Well, it wasn'thard to put two and two together. Not that I figured anything out.Just was walking on my toes, ready to jump in any direction."
As for Bill Gregg, he brooded for a time on what he had heard, then heshook his head and sighed. "I'd be a mighty helpless kid in this heretown if I didn't have you along, Ronicky," he said.
"Nope," insisted Ronicky. "Long as you use another gent for a sort ofguide you feel kind of helpless. But, when you step off for yourself,everything is pretty easy. You just were waiting for me to take thelead, or you'd have done just as much by yourself."
Again Bill Gregg sighed, as he shook his head. "If this is what NewYork is like," he said, "we're in for a pretty bad time. And this iswhat they call a civilized town? Great guns, they need martial law anda thousand policemen to the block to keep a gent's life and pocketbooksafe in this town! First gent we meet tries to bump us off or get ourwad. Don't look like we're going to have much luck, Ronicky."
"We saved our hides, I guess."
"That's about all."
"And we learned something."
"Sure."
"Then I figure it was a pretty good night.
"Another thing, Bill. I got an idea from that taxi gent. I figure thatwhole gang of taxi men are pretty sharp in the eye. What I mean isthat we can tramp up and down along this here East River, and nowand then we'll talk to some taxi men that do most of their work fromstands in them parts of the town. Maybe we can get on her trail thatway. Anyways, it's an opening."
"Maybe," said Bill Gregg dubiously. He reached under his pillow. "ButI'm sure going to sleep with a gun under my head in this town!" Withthis remark he settled himself for repose and presently was snoringloudly.
Ronicky presented a brave face to the morning and at once startedwith Bill Gregg to tour along the East River. That first day Ronickyinsisted that they simply walk over the whole ground, so as to becomefairly familiar with the scale of their task. They managed to make thetrip before night and returned to the hotel, footsore from the hard,hot pavements. There was something unkindly and ungenerous in thosepavements, it seemed to Ronicky. He was discovering to his greatamazement that the loneliness of the mountain desert is nothing at allcompared to the loneliness of the Manhattan crowd.
Two very gloomy and silent cow-punchers ate their dinner that nightand went to bed early. But in the morning they began the actual workof their campaign. It was an arduous labor. It meant interviewing inevery district one or two storekeepers, and asking the mail carriersfor "Caroline Smith," and showing the picture to taxi drivers. Theselatter were the men, insisted Ronicky, who would eventually bring themto Caroline Smith. "Because, if they've ever drove a girl as pretty asthat, they'll remember for quite a while."
"But half of these gents ain't going to talk to us, even if theyknow," Bill Gregg protested, after he had been gruffly refused ananswer a dozen times in the first morning.
"Some of 'em won't talk," admitted Ronicky, "but that's probablybecause they don't know. Take 'em by and large, most gents like totell everything they know, and then some!"
As a matter of fact they met with rather more help than they wanted.In spite of all their efforts to appear casual there was somethingtoo romantic in this search for a girl to remain entirely unnoticed.People whom they asked became excited and offered them a thousandsuggestions. Everybody, it seemed, had, somewhere, somehow, heard of aCaroline Smith living in his own block, and every one remembered dimlyhaving passed a girl on the street who looked exactly like CarolineSmith. But they went resolutely on, running down a thousand falseclues and finding at the end of each something more ludicrous thanwhat had gone before. Maiden ladies with many teeth and big glassesthey found; and they discovered, at the ends of the trails on whichthey were advised to go, young women and old, ugly girls and prettyones, but never any one who in the slightest degree resembled CarolineSmith.
In the meantime they were working back and forth, in their progressalong the East River, from the slums to the better residencedistricts. They bought newspapers at little stationery stores andworked up chance conversations with the clerks, particularly girlclerks, whenever they could find them.
"Because women have the eye for faces," Ronicky would say, "and, if agirl like Caroline Smith came into the shop, she'd be remembered for awhile."
But for ten days they labored without a ghost of a success. Thenthey noticed the taxi stands along the East Side and worked them ascarefully as they could, and it was on the evening of the eleventh dayof the search that they reached the first clue.
They had found a taxi drawn up before a saloon, converted into aneating place, and when they went inside they found the driver alone inthe restaurant. They worked up the conversation, as they had done ahundred times before. Gregg produced the picture and began showing itto Ronicky.
"Maybe the lady's around here," said Ronicky, "but I'm new in thispart of town." He took the picture and turned to the taxi driver."Maybe you've been around this part of town and know the folks here.Ever see this girl around?" And he passed the picture to the other.
The taxi driver bowed his head over it in a close scrutiny. When helooked up his face was a blank.
"I don't know. Lemme see. I think I seen a girl like her the otherday, waiting for the traffic to pass at Seventy-second and Broadway.Yep, she sure was a ringer for this picture." He passed the pictureback, and a moment later he finished his meal, paid his check and wentsauntering through the door.
"Quick!" said Ronicky, the moment the chauffeur had disappeared. "Paythe check and come along. That fellow knows something."
Bill Gregg, greatly excited, obeyed, and they hurried to the door ofthe place. They were in time to see the taxicab lurch away from thecurb and go humming down the street, while the driver leaned out tothe side and looked back.
"He didn't see us," said Ronicky confidently.
"But what did he leave for?"
"He's gone to tell somebody, somewhere, that we're looking forCaroline Smith. Come on!" He stepped out to the curb and stopped apassing taxi. "Follow that machine and keep a block away from it," heordered.
"Bootlegger?" asked the taxi driver cheerily.
"I don't know, but just drift along behind him till he stops. Can youdo that?"
"Watch me!"
And, with Ronicky and Bill Gregg installed in his machine, he startedsmoothly on the trail.
Straight down the cross street, under the roaring elevated tracks ofSecond and Third Avenues, they passed, and on First Avenue they turnedand darted sharply south for a round dozen blocks, then went due eastand came, to a halt after a brief run.
"He's stopped in Beekman Place," said the driver, jerking open thedoor. "If I run in there he'll see me."
Ronicky stepped from the machine, paid him and dismissed him witha word of praise for his fine trailing. Then he stepped around thecorner.
What he saw was a little street closed at both ends and only two orthree blocks long. It had the serene, detached air of a village athousand miles from any great city, with its grave rows of homelyhouses standing solemnly face to face. Well to the left, t
heFifty-ninth Street Bridge swung its great arch across the river, andit led, Ronicky knew, to Long Island City beyond, but here everythingwas cupped in the village quiet.
The machine which they had been pursuing was drawn up on theright-hand side of the street, looking south, and, even as Ronickyglanced around the corner, he saw the driver leave his seat, dart up aflight of steps and ring the bell.
Ronicky could not see who opened the door, but, after a moment oftalk, the chauffeur from the car they had pursued was allowed toenter. And, as he stepped across the threshold, he drew off his capwith a touch of reverence which seemed totally out of keeping with hischaracter as Ronicky had seen it.
"Bill," he said to Gregg, "we've got something. You seen him go upthose steps to that house?"
"Sure."
Bill Gregg's eyes were flashing with the excitement. "That house hassomebody in it who knows Caroline Smith, and that somebody is excitedbecause we're hunting for her," said Bill. "Maybe it holds Carolineherself. Who can tell that? Let's go see."
"Wait till that taxi driver goes. If he'd wanted us to know aboutCaroline he'd of told us. He doesn't want us to know and he'd maybetake it pretty much to heart if he knew we'd followed him."
"What he thinks don't worry me none. I can tend to three like him."
"Maybe, but you couldn't handle thirty, and coyotes like him hunt inpacks, always. The best fighting pair of coyotes that ever steppedwouldn't have no chance against a lofer wolf, but no lofer wolf couldstand off a dozen or so of the little devils. So keep clear of theselittle rat-faced gents, Bill. They hunt in crowds."
Presently they saw the chauffeur coming down the steps. Even at thatdistance it could be seen that he was smiling broadly, and that he wasintensely pleased with himself and the rest of the world.
Starting up his machine, he swung it around dexterously, as only NewYork taxi drivers can, and sped down the street by the way he hadcome, passing Gregg and Ronicky, who had flattened themselves againstthe fence to keep from being seen. They observed that, while hecontrolled the car with one hand, with the other he was examining thecontents of his wallet.
"Money for him!" exclaimed Ronicky, as soon as the car was out ofsight around the corner. "This begins to look pretty thick, Bill.Because he goes and tells them that he's taken us off the trail theynot only thank him, but they pay him for it. And, by the face of him,as he went by, they pay him pretty high. Bill, it's easy to figurethat they don't want any friend near Caroline Smith, and most likethey don't even want us near that house."
"I only want to go near once," said Bill Gregg. "I just want to findout if the girl is there."
"Go break in on 'em?"
"Break in! Ronicky, that's burglary!"
"Sure it is."
"Ill just ask for Caroline Smith at the door."
"Try it."
The irony made Bill Gregg stop in the very act of leaving and glanceback. But he went on again resolutely and stamped up the steps to thefront door of the house.
It was opened to him almost at once by a woman, for Bill's hat comeoff. For a moment he was explaining. Then there was a pause in hisgestures, as she made the reply. Finally he spoke again, but was cutshort by the loud banging of the door.
Bill Gregg drew himself up rigidly and slowly replaced the hat on hishead. If a man had turned that trick on him, a .45-caliber slug wouldhave gone crashing through the door in search of him to teach him aWesterner's opinion of such manners.
Ronicky Doone could not help smiling to himself, as he saw Bill Greggstump stiffly down the stairs, limping a little on his wounded leg,and come back with a grave dignity to the starting point. He was stillcrimson to the roots of his hair.
"Let's start," he said. "If that happens again I'll be doing a coupleof murders in this here little town and getting myself hung."
"What happened?"
"An old hag jerked open the door after I rang the bell. I asked hernice and polite if a lady named Caroline Smith was in the house? 'No,'says she, 'and if she was, what's that to you?' I told her I'd come along ways to see Caroline. 'Then go a long ways back without seeingCaroline,' says this withered old witch, and she banged the door rightin my face. Man, I'm still seeing red. Them words of the old womanwere whips, and every one of them sure took off the hide. I used tothink that old lady Moore in Martindale was a pretty nasty talker, butthis one laid over her a mile. But we're beat, Ronicky. You couldn'tget by that old woman with a thousand men."
"Maybe not," said Ronicky Doone, "but we're going to try. Did you lookacross the street and see a sign a while ago?"
"Which side?"
"Side right opposite Caroline's house."
"Sure. 'Room To Rent.'"
"I thought so. Then that's our room."
"Eh?"
"That's our room, partner, and right at the front window over thestreet one of us is going to keep watch day and night, till we makesure that Caroline Smith don't live in that house. Is that right?"
"That's a great idea!" He started away from the fence.
"Wait!" Ronicky caught him by the shoulder and held him back. "We'llwait till night and then go and get that room. If Caroline is in thehouse yonder, and they know we're looking for her, it's easy that shewon't be allowed to come out the front of the house so long as we'reperched up at the window, waiting to see her. We'll come back tonightand start waiting."