"You'll come upstairs with me, and--er--sort of outline a policy? I ought to have any possible information you can give me, so's not to make any more wrong moves than we have to."

"Information?" he echoed, and I hastened to amend,

"I mean whatever notion you've got. Your theory, you know--"

"Not a notion. Not a theory." He shook his head, eyes on the traffic cop. "That's your part."

I sat there somewhat flabbergasted. After all, I hadn't fully believed that the boy had absolutely nothing to go on, that he had bought purely at a whim, put up eight hundred thousand dollars on my skill at running down a criminal. It sort of crumpled me up. I said so. He laughed a little, ran up to the curb at the Phelan building, cut out the engine, set the brake and turned to me with,

"Don't worry. I'm getting what I paid for--or what I'm going to pay for.

And I've got to go right after the money. Suppose I meet you, say, at ten o'clock to-night?"

"Suits me."

"At Tait's. Reserve a table, will you, and we'll have supper."

"You're on," I said. "And plenty to do myself meantime." I hopped out on my side.

Worth sat in the roadster, not hurrying himself to follow up c.u.mmings'

suggestion--the big boy, non-communicative, incurious, the question of fortune lost or won seeming not to trouble him at all. I skirted the machine and came round to him, demanding,

"With whom do you suppose c.u.mmings' engagement was?"

"Don't know, Jerry, and don't care," looking down at me serenely. "Why should I?" He swung one long leg free and stopped idly, half in the car, half out.

"What if I told you c.u.mmings' engagement was with our friend d.y.k.eman--only d.y.k.eman doesn't know it yet?"

Slowly he brought that dangling foot down to the pavement, followed it with the other, and faced me. Across the blankness of his features shot a joyous gleam; it spread, brightening till he was radiant.

"I get you!" he chortled. "Collusion! They think I'm standing in with Clayte--Oh, boy!"

He threw back his head and roared.

CHAPTER III

A WEDDING PARTY

I looked at my watch; quarter of ten; a little ahead of my appointment.

I ordered a telephone extension brought to this corner table I had reserved at Tait's and got in touch with my office; then with the knowledge that any new kink in the case would be reported immediately to me, I relaxed to watch the early supper crowd arrive: Women in picture hats and bare or half-bare shoulders with rich wraps slipping off them; hum of voices; the clatter of silver and china; waiters beginning to wake up and dart about settling new arrivals. And I wondered idly what sort of party would come to sit around one long table across from me specially decorated with pale tinted flowers.

There was a sense of warmth and comfort at my heart. I am a lonely man; the people I take to seem to have a way of pa.s.sing on in the stream of life--or death--leaving me with a few well-thumbed volumes on a shelf in my rooms for consolation. Walt Whitman, Montaigne, The Bard, two or three other lesser poets, and you've the friends that have stayed by me for thirty years. And so, having met up with Worth Gilbert when he was a youngster, at the time his mother was living in San Francisco to get a residence for her divorce proceedings, having loved the boy and got I am sure some measure of affection in return, it seemed almost too much to ask of fate that he should come back into my days, plunge into such a proposition as this bank robbery, right at my elbow as it were, and make himself my employer--my boss.

I was a subordinate in the agency in those old times when he and I used to chin about the business, and his idea (I always discussed it gravely and respectfully with him) was to grow up and go into partnership with me. Well, we were partners now.

Past ten, nearly five minutes. Where was he? What up to? Would he miss his appointment? No, I caught a glimpse of him at the door getting rid of hat and overcoat, pausing a moment with tall bent head to banter Rose, the little Chinese girl who usually drifted from table to table with cigars and cigarettes. Then he was coming down the room.

A man who takes his own path in life, and will walk it though h.e.l.l bar the way, never explaining, never extenuating, never excusing his course--something seems to emanate from such a chap that draws all eyes after him in a public place in a look between fear and desire. Sitting there in Tait's, my view of Worth cut off now by a waiter with a high-carried tray, again by people pa.s.sing to tables for whom he halted, I had a good chance to see the turning of eyeb.a.l.l.s that followed him, the furtive glances that s.n.a.t.c.hed at him, or fondled him, or would have probed him; the admiration of the women, the envy of the men, curiously alike in that it was sometimes veiled and half wistful, sometimes very open. Drifters--you see so many of the sort in a restaurant--why wouldn't they hanker after the strength and ruthlessness of a man like Worth? And the poor prunes, how little they knew him! As my friend Walt would say, he wasn't out after any of the old, smooth prizes they cared for. And win or lose he would still be a victor, for all he and his sort demand is freedom, and the joy of the game. So he came on to me.

I noticed, a little startled, as he slumped into his chair with a grunt of greeting, that his cheek was somehow gaunt and pale under the tan; the blue fire of his eyes only smoldered, and I pulled back his chair with,

"You look as if you hadn't had any dinner."

"I haven't." He gave a man-size order for food and turned back from it to listen to me. "I'll be nearer human when I get some grub under my belt."

My report of what had been done on the case since we separated was interrupted by the arrival of our orders, and Worth sailed into a thick, juicy steak while I was still explaining details. The orchestra whanged and blared and jazzed away; the people at the other tables noticed us or busied themselves noisily with affairs of their own; Worth sat and enjoyed his meal with the air of a man feeding at a solitary country tavern. When he had finished--and he took his time about it--the worn, punished look was gone from his face; his eye was bright, his tone nonchalant, as he lighted a cigarette, remarking,

"I've had one more good dinner. Food's a thing you can depend on; it doesn't rake up your entire past record from the time you squirmed into this world, and tell you what a fool you've always been."

I turned that over in my mind. Did it mean that he'd seen his father and got a calling down? I wanted to know--and was afraid to ask. The fact is I was beginning to wake up to a good many things about my young boss. I was intensely interested in his reactions on people. So far, I'd seen him with strangers. I wished that I might have a chance to observe him among intimates. Old Richardson who founded our agency (and would never knowingly have left me at the head of it, though he did take me in as partner, finally) used to say that the main trouble with me was I studied people instead of cases. Richardson held that all men are equal before the detective, and must be regarded only as queer shaped pieces to be fitted together so as to make out a case. Richardson would have gone as coolly about easing the salt of the earth into the c.h.i.n.k labeled "murder" or "embezzlement," as though neither had been human. With me the personal equation always looms big, and of course he was quite right in saying that it's likely to get you all gummed up.

The telephone on the table before me rang. It was Roberts, my secretary, with the word that Foster had lifted the watch from Ocean View, the little town at the neck of the peninsula, where bay and ocean narrow the pa.s.sageway to one thoroughfare, over which every machine must pa.s.s that goes by land from San Francisco. With two operatives, he had been on guard there since three o'clock of the afternoon, holding up blond men in cars, asking questions, taking notes and numbers. Now he reported it was a useless waste of time.

"Order him in," I instructed Roberts.

A far-too-fat entertainer out on the floor was writhing in the pangs of an Hawaiian dance. It took the attention of the crowd. I watched the face of my companion for a moment, then,

"Worth," I said a bit nervously--after all, I nearly had to know--"is your father going to come through?"

"Eh?" He looked at me startled, then put it aside negligently. "Oh, the money? No. I'll leave that up to c.u.mmings." A brief pause. "We'll get a wiggle on us and dig up the suitcase." He lifted his tumbler, stared at it, then unseeingly out across the room, and his lip twitched in a half smile. "I'm sure glad I bought it."

Looking at him, I had no reason to doubt his word. His enjoyment of the situation seemed to grow with every detail I brought up.

It was near eleven when the party came in to take the long, flower-trimmed table. Worth's back was to the room; I saw them over his shoulder, in the lead a tall blonde, very smartly dressed, but not in evening clothes; in severe, exclusive street wear. The man with her, good looking, almost her own type, had that possessive air which seems somehow unmistakable--and there was a look about the half dozen companions after them, as they settled themselves in a great flurry of sc.r.a.ping chairs, that made me murmur with a grin,

"Bet that's a wedding party."

Worth gave them one quick glance, then came round to me with a smile.

"You win. Married at Santa Ysobel this afternoon. Local society event.

Whole place standing on its hind legs, taking notice."

So he had been down to the little town to see his father after all. And he wasn't going to talk about it. Oh, well.

"Friends of yours?" I asked perfunctorily, and he gave me a queer look out of the corners of those wicked eyes, repeating in an enjoying drawl.

"Friends? Oh, hardly that. The girl I was to have married, and Bronson Vandeman--the man she has married."

I had wanted to get a more intimate line on the kid--it seemed that here was a chance with a vengeance!

"The rest of the bunch?" I suggested. He took a leisurely survey, and gave them three words:

"Family and accomplices."

"Santa Ysobel people, too, then. Folks you know well?"