Читать книгу Guarding His Goal - Ralph Henry Barbour - Страница 6

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Arnold’s gaze sped in the direction indicated, but for an instant the crowd interfered. “Are you sure?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes,” whispered Toby. “I saw him! Now look, Arn!”

Well, whether he was the man who had taken Toby’s purse or not, at least he tallied surprisingly with Toby’s description. He was standing with his back to the counter in front of a fan-shaped display of ladies’ umbrellas, looking impatiently and frowningly about him for all the world like a man kept waiting at an appointment. So well did he look the part, in fact, that Arnold was quite certain that Toby must be wrong. But a closer examination of the man convinced him that he was only acting, for the eyes under the pulled-down brim of a black felt hat darted swiftly hither and thither, reminding Arnold too much of a hawk. Some twenty feet of aisle space, crowded with shoppers, separated the boys from the man in the brown overcoat, and it was only by raising himself on his tiptoes that Arnold could catch brief glimpses of the latter.

“What are you going to do?” Arnold whispered excitedly.

Toby deliberated. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know. If there was a policeman here—”

“They have detectives in these stores, I think,” said the other. “Only I don’t know how a fellow would know one if he saw him.”

“I might keep an eye on him while you found a policeman,” suggested Toby, doubtfully.

“Suppose he went off before I got the officer, though?”

“That’s the trouble. We might ask a clerk to send for one, or—or find the proprietor—”

But the man in the brown overcoat settled the matter then and there by leaving his place at the counter and mingling with the outgoing throng. More by luck than anything else, Arnold saw and tugged Toby’s coat sleeve. “Come on!” he said quickly. “He’s going!”

The boys hurried toward the door, or tried to hurry, but their quarry was lost to sight for a moment and when they reached the sidewalk nothing was to be seen of him.

“Which way?” demanded Arnold.

Toby, craning his head, dodging about, pushed and scowled at, was at a loss, and the adventure would have ended there and then had not Arnold’s gaze caught a brief flash of light brown between the jostling throng. “I think I see him,” he cried. “Come on, Toby!” He pushed his way to the edge of the broad sidewalk, Toby following at his heels, just in time to see the man disappear behind a car at the far side of the street. Without pause they dashed after. That they escaped injury in the seething traffic was only by the veriest good fortune. An automobile almost ran them down half-way across, a trolley car ground its brakes in seeming chagrin as they leaped out of its path, and, after that, they were forced to remain marooned between track and curbing for many moments before a tiny break in the line of vehicles allowed them to squeeze through.

As might have been expected, by the time they found themselves on the sidewalk, very much out of breath, the brown overcoat was once more gone from view, and although they gazed up and down the street no glimpse of it rewarded them. Toby’s countenance took on an expression of despair that was almost ludicrous and Arnold fretted and fumed.

“If we hadn’t been held up out there we’d have caught him,” he declared as they stood undecidedly on the edge of the sidewalk. “Now he’s gone for good, I guess.”

Toby nodded dolorous assent. “I wish I’d just gone up and grabbed hold of him when I had the chance,” he said. “Which way was he going, do you think?”

“He wasn’t going any way. He was headed straight across the street.”

“Why, then—” Toby stopped and ran his gaze over the fronts of the buildings. Almost opposite where they stood was the entrance of a small, third-rate hotel. “I’ll bet he went in there,” said Toby with conviction. “Maybe he lives there.”

Arnold viewed the hostelry and shook his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if that is just where he went, but I don’t believe he lives there. Perhaps if we wait awhile he will come out again. What do you think?”

“I guess it’s all we can do,” replied Toby. “But we had better get out of sight a little more, for if he came out and saw us he might recognize me and run.”

The suggestion was a good one since this side of the thoroughfare was far less crowded and their present position was in fair view of the entrance. So they retired to a near-by doorway from which, by peering around the corner of a plate-glass window, they could watch the hotel entrance. It promised to be tiresome work and there were all sorts of things happening every minute to distract their gaze. But Fortune favored them again and very shortly, for they had been there less than five minutes when Toby uttered a warning hiss and Arnold, whose gaze had wandered for an instant, looked around in time to see the man in the brown overcoat emerge from the hotel. He paused for a moment outside the doorway and speculatively looked up and down the street. Finally he turned eastward and strolled unhurriedly toward them. The boys withdrew further into their doorway, turning their backs and becoming on the instant extremely interested in the window display. But the man didn’t even glance in their direction and as soon as he had passed the boys slipped out from concealment and followed.

During the next seven or eight minutes, which time the man consumed in reaching the corner, there were many pauses. Their quarry paused frequently to look into windows or survey the passers. Once he stopped and backed up against a building while his gaze speculatively followed two richly-dressed women. But apparently he decided that the women presented small chance for the display of his talents, for he went on again. All the time the boys looked anxiously for a policeman, but a policeman when wanted is an extremely rare thing, and not one appeared in sight all the way along the block. At the corner the traffic signal was set at “Stop” and the man in the brown overcoat paused just back of the curb, one of an impatient throng of a dozen or so persons. Toby and Arnold stopped at a discreet distance. In the center of the intersecting thoroughfares, in command of the traffic signal, was a very tall and very efficient-looking policeman. The boys consulted hurriedly. Then they advanced toward the man in the brown overcoat. The northward and southward streams of hurrying vehicles continued. Toby drew up at the man’s right and Arnold on his other side. It was Toby who opened negotiations.

“We were going to point you out to the policeman,” he said softly, trying to keep his voice steady, “but we decided to give you a chance first.”

The man turned and scowled down with shifty eyes.

“What do you want?” he demanded threateningly.

“My purse and eight dollars and fifty cents,” said Toby. “If you try to get away we’ll grab you and yell. Keep close, Arn!”

The pickpocket glanced swiftly around at Arnold who was pressing closely against his left shoulder. Then his eyes darted up and down the avenue. At that moment the crossing officer’s whistle sounded shrilly and the signal turned. The little throng by the curb surged forward and with a sudden dart the man followed. But Toby had seized one arm and Arnold the other, and not fifty feet away was the policeman. The man in the brown overcoat tried, with a snarl, to throw off his captors, but they clung like leeches, and fearing to attract embarrassing attention the man slowed down to a hurried walk. Three abreast, the boys clinging affectionately to him, they crossed the street. Once across the pickpocket stopped of his own choice.

“What is this?” he asked indignantly. “A hold-up?”

“If you want to call it that,” answered Toby steadily. “All I want is the purse you stole from my pocket in Eastman’s. You hand it over and we’ll let you go.”

“Aw, I never saw you before,” snarled the man. “Get out of here before I hand you something, kids. It won’t be no purse, neither!” He tugged in an effort to free himself from their grasps, but they held on hard.

“Want us to shout?” asked Arnold significantly. The man’s belligerent gaze wavered. He cast a swift and dubious look toward the officer.

“Well, what is it you want?” he muttered.

“You know,” said Toby. “A small yellow coin-purse with eight dollars in it. Come on, now. You’d better be sensible.”

“I ain’t got any purse, honest. You can search me, boys!”

“Then you threw it away,” responded Toby. “It cost me seventy-five cents, but it was sort of ripping on the seams, so we’ll call it fifty. Eight-fifty is what I want from you then.”

“Well, I’ll be blowed!” said the man with a trace of unwilling admiration. Then he actually chuckled. “Say, kid, you’ve got your nerve, all right, ain’t you? Say, I kinder think maybe you ought to have it. You was decent not to squeal to the cop. All right, kid, you win! But you got to let go my arms if you want me to dig for it.”

Toby questioned Arnold with a glance. “Give him his right arm, Toby,” said Arnold. “If he starts to go, grab him again. I’ve got him here.”

“Aw, say, can’t you believe a feller?” asked the man aggrievedly. “I said I’d loosen up an’ I’ll do it. Gee, you rich guys is the limit! What’s eight dollars to fellers like you, anyway? Why don’t you give the rest of us a chance to live?”

He thrust the hand Toby had released between the buttons of his overcoat and fumbled an instant, while Toby watched narrowly and Arnold clung like grim death to the other arm.

“Why don’t you pick out an honest way to live?” asked Toby.

The man shrugged his shoulders. “Guess I wasn’t brung up right,” he answered, with a grin. “It ain’t so easy to walk the straight an’ narrer when you get started all wrong, kid. Here’s your money. I threw the purse away. It ain’t safe to keep purses around you. Let me have that other hand so’s I can count it off, can’t you?”

He had brought out a roll of bills quite two inches thick. Toby hesitated, dubious. “Promise not to run?” he asked finally.

“Word of honor, kid!”

“Let him go, Arn.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” said the man in the brown overcoat ironically. “Now then, got fifty cents? Here’s your nine dollars.” He peeled off a five and four ones and Arnold produced a fifty cent piece and the exchange was made. As Toby slipped the recovered wealth into an inner pocket the man said: “That’s right, kid. Let me tell you something. Don’t never carry money in an outside pocket. Leastways, not in this town! ’Tain’t safe. An’ it’s an awful temptation to fellers like me. So long, cullies. Good luck!”

“Good-by,” said Toby.

The man in the brown overcoat smiled, winked, pulled his hat to a new angle and sauntered off and was soon lost to sight in the throng. Toby drew a deep sigh of relief and satisfaction.

“Jiminy, Arn, I never thought I’d get that back, did you?”

“I never did, Toby. You certainly were lucky. He wasn’t such a bad sort after all, was he?”

“N—no.” Toby gazed thoughtfully at the busy scene before them. “I dare say there’s a lot in what he said, Arn. About getting started right, I mean. I guess lots of folks wouldn’t be dishonest if they’d had the right sort of—of bringing up, eh?”

“I guess so. Look here, it’s nearly one o’clock! What’ll you do about buying your presents?”

“I guess it’s too late now.” Toby’s face fell.

“I tell you what we’ll do. We’ll find a telephone and send word we won’t be home for luncheon, eh? We’ll get a bite to eat somewhere and then you can shop until nearly three. You can do a lot in two hours. What do you say?”

“Would you mind? I’d like awfully to do that.”

“Not a bit. It’ll be fun. I know a place near here where we can get fine eats. Come on!”

But, although Toby came on, when Arnold turned to speak to him a minute later he wasn’t there. Impatiently Arnold turned back. Toby had paused a few yards in the rear.

“For the love of mud, Toby, get a move on, can’t you?” exclaimed Arnold. “What’s wrong now?”

“Nothing,” was the satisfied response. “I only just stopped to see if my money was still there. I won’t feel really safe until I’ve spent it, I guess!”