When he felt the pavement under him getting cool and knew the shadows had lain over it for a long time, he got up and they started slowly back. Dick didn’t know that they weren’t going home just like any other night, Dick couldn’t tell they were up against the toughest job of both their lives. But if he had, he’d have still been there beside him, probably.
Near the park entrance Marty stopped a laborer they passed and asked him, not the exact time, but just how dark it was.
“It’s as dark as it’ll ever get tonight,” was the answer.
Marty nodded his thanks and went on. That was the way he wanted it to be. The street lights would still give his intended adversary a big advantage at that; this was as even as the odds could be made, and they were still pretty heavy against him.
Back into the built-up streets they crossed, and his heart was pounding while he trudged so serenely along beside Dick. Along here some place it would be, somewhere along the next three blocks.
It was nightfall now and people were hurrying home from their offices and jobs; they didn’t have leisure to collect around him and gape like they did earlier in the day. A glance in passing was the most they gave him. Not more than one person, as a rule, stepped up and asked him foolish questions on his way back at nights. He knew now what that meant, who that one person was, but he hadn’t until now.
They slowly coursed the first block after the park and nothing happened. The way Dick’s coat kept contact with the shank of his leg, no one could have impeded the dog for a moment without Marty’s knowing it immediately.
They crossed the intersection and began covering the second block. Marty couldn’t tell whether it was a darker stretch than the one before, and therefore more favorable to undercover purposes, or not. It sounded a little quieter, however, and therefore must have been less brightly lighted. Along they toiled, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, with the patter of Dick’s three normal paws and the tick of his little wooden peg for an accompaniment. Then suddenly just as they were nearing the far corner, and Marty had already checked the block off as not being the one, a single stealthy footfall fell directly beside them, as though someone had stepped out of the shelter of a doorway or nook in the building line.
A voice asked softly, “What’s that, a wooden leg he’s got, pop?”
“Yeah,” said Marty benevolently, and took a deep breath.
He brought the popcorn out of his pocket, well crumbled by now in its wrapping, started to put a little in his mouth, fumbled the package, and it spilled all over the sidewalk around him, like rice at a wedding, but much stickier than rice could ever be.
There was a crunching, gritty sound, as it was ground underfoot, became embedded in shoe leather. As the man who had been crouching down beside Dick moved inadvertently backward in straightening up, he apparently didn’t even notice that he was getting his soles full of it.
“Some contraption!” he murmured appreciatively.
His steps receded. But they couldn’t be very furtive any more. Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch, it was almost like someone walking on gravel. Marty’s ears could pick it up as easily as a microphone in a recording room.
The retreating man became conscious of it himself after a few steps. There was a scraping sound as he tried to free the soles of his shoes. But the stuff was as hard to get off entirely as chewing gum. The crunching had diminished considerably when the tread resumed, but there was still plenty of it left to be a distinguishing mark for Marty; it was a lot easier to identify than Burkhardt’s one-two-three had been last night.
Meanwhile he and Dick were advancing again in their original direction, with the gritty walk receding far ahead of them now and drawing farther away at every step. Suddenly it was blotted out entirely, and Marty knew what that meant: the man had rounded the corner.
“Hurry up before we lose him!” he whispered, and started out at a lumbering headlong run, stick folded under his arm to avoid tripping over it.
Dick loped along beside him, then swerved in and braked him abruptly, so he knew they were out at the curb line. That was too far out; all the man had to do was look back over his shoulder and he’d see them there. Marty quickly tacked back for what he judged to be a sufficient distance to be sheltered by the building line; then he shifted over closer to it and listened for all he was worth. All this of course was confusing to Dick, but he followed suit.
Yes, there it was, he could still make it out going far down the side street. Gra-ak, grick, gra-ak, grick. Very faint, though, now. “Have to close in a little or we’re going to lose it,” he said, and that was a dangerous thing to do in a straight line. He took off his glasses and pocketed them as he rounded the corner, but he knew the precaution was worse than useless; while Dick remained with him, he could be spotted a mile off. And what good was he without Dick?
For the first time the thought of failure entered his mind. Burkhardt was right, he’d never make it. Too late, Marty saw now what his mistake was. He should have brought someone else along with him, someone with eyesight. He could have accomplished what he had so far, then they could have taken it up from here on, tracked his man down, come back, and reported where he had holed up. But who could he have used? Celia? That would have subjected her to danger; and then probably Burkhardt would have freed himself in her absence, raised an alarm, and he would be in a detention cell by now. Marty cast the thought of defeat resolutely from him. The footsteps were still in range, weren’t they? Why give up yet?
Twice they faded out, and he thought he’d lost them, but each time they came back again. Still, he didn’t like the sound of that. What did it mean, that he’d stopped and looked back? Meanwhile, Marty was hustling along at a pace he’d never attempted before, and taxing Dick’s ingenuity to the utmost. Dick wasn’t used to guiding him at the double-quick like this, but the dog made a good job of it.
The steps ahead were growing a little clearer again, which meant that he was closing in on them, when suddenly what he had been dreading most all along happened. They stopped dead about three quarters of a block ahead, there was the sound of a latch being opened, and then a car door slammed closed with sickening finality.
It was over; he’d lost him. He might as well quit now. Even memorizing the license plate wouldn’t have been much good, but he couldn’t even do that. An engine started to turn with a fine silky whir, wheels slithered into motion. He might have known this would happen. Birds like that didn’t travel afoot any farther than they could avoid it; too much danger of being picked up.
There was only one slim chance left, and he tried for it. He swerved out to the gutter and started to flourish his stick wildly and bawl, “Taxi! Taxi!” This was one thing Dick couldn’t do for him, but he added his barks to the din. The departure of their quarry was drowned out in the racket.
He was luckier than many a full-sighted person has been in such an emergency. One must have been passing on the opposite side of the street just then. He heard the squeal of a U turn, and Dick nudged him back out of the way just in time to avoid having his shins barked by a running board that came coasting up.
“Yes, sir,” a cheery voice said. “Where to?” And a door was swung open for him.
He tumbled in, Dick after him with an ungainly heave.
“Did you notice a car just pulling away from the curb, on this side, on your way up just now?”
“Yeah, I can still see it from here. There’s a light holding him up two blocks down.”
Gratification almost made Marty stammer. “Keep him in sight for me, stay with him, don’t lose him!”