ure followed the bank-clerk almost to his lodgings, had
it not been for the fact that just before Jefferson Place was reached
the figure sidled up to Hicks' side and whispered:

"No news yet, Morrow. Pennold went this morning to old Loui the
Grabber and tried to borrow money from him, but didn't get it. I heard
the whole talk. Then he went to Tanbark Pete's and got a ten-spot.
After that, he divided his time between two saloons, where he played
dominoes and pinochle, and his own house. I've got to report to H. B.
when I'm sure the subject is safe for the night. Have you found
anything yet?"

"Only that I've got him on the run. If he knows where our man is,
Suraci, he'll go after him in a day or two. Meantime, tell H. B., in
case I don't get a chance to let him know, that the securities stunt
went, all right, and my end of it is O. K."

The next day, and the following, Pennold did indeed set for the young
Italian detective a swift pace. He departed upon long rambles, which
started briskly and ended aimlessly; he called upon harmless and
tedious acquaintances, from Jamaica to Fordham; he went--apparently
and ostentatiously to look for a position as janitor--to many
office-buildings in lower Manhattan, which he invariably entered and
left by different doors. In the evenings he sat blandly upon his own
stoop, smoking and chatting amiably if monosyllabically with his wife
and their new-found friend, Alfred Hicks, while his indefatigable
shadow glowered apparently unnoticed from the gloom of the ailanthus
tree.

On Thursday morning, however, Pennold betook himself leisurely to the
nearest subway station, and there the real trial of strength between
him and his unseen antagonist began. From the Brooklyn Bridge station
he rode to the Grand Central; then with a speed which belied his
physical appearance, he raced across the bridge to the downtown
platform, and caught a train for Fourteenth Street. There he swiftly
turned north to Seventy-second Street--then to the Grand Central,
again to Ninety-sixth, and so on, doubling from station to station
until finally he felt that he must be entirely secure from pursuit.

He alighted at length at a station far up in the Bronx, and after
looking carefully about he started off toward the west, where the
mushroom growth of the new city sprang up in rows of rococo brick and
stone houses with oases of green fields and open lots between. He
turned up a little lane of tiny frame houses, ea