Lusk and O’Gar were to carefully mark the bills that the clerk brought from the bank, and then stick as close to Gatewood as they could without attracting attention. I was to go out to Gatewood’s house and stay there.
The abductors had plainly instructed Gatewood to get the money ready immediately so that they could arrange to get it on short notice — not giving him time to communicate with anyone or make any plans.
Gatewood was to get hold of the newspapers, give them the whole story, with the $10,000 reward he was offering for the abductors’ capture, to be published as soon as the girl was safe — so we would get the help of publicity at the earliest possible moment without jeopardizing the girl.
The police in all the neighboring towns had already been notified — that had been done before the girl’s phone message had assured us that she was held in San Francisco.
Nothing happened at the Gatewood residence all that evening. Harvey Gatewood came home early; and after dinner he paced his library floor and drank whiskey until bedtime, demanding every few minutes that we, the detectives in the case, do something besides sit around like a lot of damned mummies. O’Gar, Lusk, and Thode were out in the street, keeping an eye on the house and neighborhood.
At midnight Harvey Gatewood went to bed. I declined a bed in favor of the library couch, which I dragged over beside the telephone, an extension of which was in Gatewood’s bedroom.
At 2:30 the bell rang. I listened in while Gatewood talked from his bed.
A man’s voice, crisp and curt: “Gatewood?”
“Yes.”
“Got the dough?”
“Yes.”
Gatewood’s voice was thick and blurred — I could imagine the boiling that was going on inside him.
“Good!” came the brisk voice. “Put a piece of paper around it and leave the house with it, right away! Walk down Clay Street, keeping on the same side as your house. Don’t walk too fast and keep walking. If everything’s all right, and there’s no elbows tagging along, somebody’ll come up to you between your house and the waterfront. They’ll have a handkerchief up to their face for a second, and then they’ll let it fall to the ground.
“When you see that, you’ll lay the money on the pavement, turn around, and walk back to your house. If the money isn’t marked, and you don’t try any fancy tricks, you’ll get your daughter back in an hour or two. If you try to pull anything — remember what we wrote you! Got it straight?”
Gatewood sputtered something that was meant for an affirmative, and the telephone clicked silent.
I didn’t waste any of my precious time tracing the call — it would be from a public telephone. I knew — but yelled up the stairs to Gatewood:
“You do as you were told, and don’t try any foolishness!”
Then I ran out into the early morning air to find the police detectives and the post-office inspector.
They had been joined by two plainclothesmen, and had two automobiles waiting. I told them what the situation was, and we laid hurried plans.
O’Gar was to drive in one of the cars down Sacramento Street, and Thode, in the other, down Washington Street. These streets parallel Clay, one on each side. They were to drive slowly, keeping pace with Gatewood, and stopping at each cross street to see that he passed.
When he failed to cross within a reasonable time they were to turn up to Clay Street — and their actions from then on would have to be guided by chance and their own wits.
Lusk was to wander along a block or two ahead of Gatewood, on the opposite side of the street, pretending to be mildly intoxicated.
I was to shadow Gatewood down the street, with one of the plainclothesmen behind me. The other plainclothesmen was to turn in a call at headquarters for every available man to be sent to City Street. They would arrive too late, of course, and as likely as not it would lake them some time to find us; but we had no way of knowing what was going to turn up before the night was over.
Our plan was sketchy enough, but it was the best we could do — we were afraid to grab whoever got the money from Gatewood. The girl’s talk with her father that afternoon had sounded too much as if her captors were desperate for us to take any chances on going after them roughshod until she was out of their hands.
We had hardly finished our plans when Gatewood, wearing a heavy overcoat, left his house and turned down the street.
Farther down, Lusk, weaving along, talking to himself, was almost invisible in the shadows. There was no one else in sight. That meant that I had to give Gatewood at least two blocks’ lead, so that the man who came for the money wouldn’t tumble to me. One of the plainclothesmen was half a block behind me, on the other side of the street.
We walked two blocks down, and then a little chunky man in a derby hat came into sight. He passed Gatewood, passed me, went on.
Three blocks more.
A touring-car, large, black, powerfully engined, and with lowered curtains, came from the rear, passed us, went on. Possibly a scout. I scrawled its license number down on my pad without taking my hand out of my overcoat pocket.
Another three blocks.
A policeman passed, strolling along in ignorance of the game being played under his nose; and then a taxicab with a single male passenger. I wrote down its license number.
Four blocks with no one in sight ahead of me but Gatewood — I couldn’t see Lusk any more.
Just ahead of Gatewood a man stepped out of a black doorway, turned around, called up to a window for someone to come down and open the door for him.
We went on.
Coming from nowhere, a woman stood on the sidewalk 50 feet ahead of Gatewood, a handkerchief to her face. It fluttered to the pavement.
Gatewood stopped, standing stiff-legged. I could see his right hand come up, lifting the side of the overcoat in which it was pocketed — and I knew his hand was gripped around a pistol.
For perhaps half a minute he stood like a statue. Then his left hand came out of his pocket, and the bundle of money fell to the sidewalk in front of him, where it made a bright blur in the darkness. Gatewood turned abruptly, and began to retrace his steps homeward.
The woman had recovered her handkerchief. Now she ran to the bundle, picked it up, and scuttled to the black mouth of an alley a few feet distant — a rather tall woman, bent, and in dark clothes from head to feet.
In the black mouth of the alley she vanished.
I had been compelled to slow up while Gatewood and the woman stood facing each other, and I was more than a block away now. As soon as the woman disappeared, I took a chance and started pounding my rubber soles against the pavement.
The alley was empty when I reached it.
It ran all the way through to the next street, but I knew that the woman couldn’t have reached the other end before I got to this one. I carry a lot of weight these days, but I can still step a block or two in good time. Along both sides of the alley were the rears of apartment buildings, each with its back door looking blankly, secretively, at me.
The plainclothesmen who had been trailing behind me came up, then O’Gar and Thode in their cars, and soon, Lusk. O’Gar and Thode rode off immediately to wind through the neighboring streets, hunting for the woman. Lusk and the plainclothesmen each planted himself or. a corner from which two of the streets enclosing the block could be watched.
I went through the alley, hunting vainly for an unlocked door, an open window, a fire-escape that would show recent use — any of the signs that a hurried departure from the alley might leave.
Nothing!
O’Gar came back shortly with some reinforcements from headquarters that he had picked up, and Gatewood.
Gatewood was burning.
“Bungled the damn thing again! I won’t pay your agency a nickel, and I’ll see that some of these so-called detectives get put back in a uniform and set to walking beats!”