He entered the elevator. Upon reaching the fourth floor, where his room was located, Harry stuffed the notes into his pocket. As soon as the elevator had continued upward, he came down the carpeted stairway. Harry was treading quietly when he reached the landing that looked down on the lobby and commanded a view of the lounge. Joyce was not in sight.
Harry walked to the doorway, and inspected the porch. If Joyce were there, he must be lost in the darkness. It was worth while to go out. Even if Joyce should be in the obscurity of the veranda, and should hail him, it would be easy enough for Harry to make the excuse that he had forgotten something he had meant to get at the village.
So Vincent went down the broad steps and started up the road that led to the avenue.
Away from the hotel he walked along the grass beside the sidewalk. He walked rapidly, with keen intention. He was acting on the hunch that Joyce had gone up that street a few minutes before.
He saw a figure ahead of him. The other man was walking on the grass also. The fellow reached the end of the road and came beneath a light at the corner.
Harry recognized Joyce as the man drew his watch from his pocket and looked at it.
A hedge at the left of the sidewalk afforded a good retreat. Harry was close by the hedge; he became motionless in the darkness as he still watched Joyce. His precaution proved useful, for the man at the corner looked back down the sidewalk for fully ten seconds. Then, apparently convinced that no one watched him, Joyce turned and went to the left.
Harry suppressed an exclamation of satisfaction. The town was to the right. Joyce was going in the opposite direction.
Still close to the friendly hedge, Harry made his way to the corner, combining speed with caution. There he stopped.
The light made it unsafe for him to turn the corner. Should Joyce look back along the sidewalk of the avenue, any one at the corner would be a direct target for his gaze.
There was an opening in the hedge and Harry slipped through to the property of the corner house. Stooping, he moved along the line of the avenue. It was fortunately a moonless night. There was little likelihood of any one seeing him if he proceeded carefully.
After walking quietly for thirty or forty feet, Harry popped his head above the hedge, which came to the level of his shoulders. Instantly he dropped from view. For he had seen a spark of light beyond the sidewalk - the light of a glowing cigarette.
The hedge was a scraggly, ill-kept mass of shrubbery. Harry discovered an opening in it, and peered through.
Yes, a man was standing beside a tree - the tree being between him and the corner, some forty feet back. Was it Joyce?
Harry suspected that it was, but he had no proof. He only knew that the man had taken a position which would make him virtually invisible from the corner; and it was at the corner that Joyce had looked to see if he were being followed.
The cigarette-ember dropped to the ground. Its smoker stood quietly, facing the avenue.
Then Harry saw him fumbling in his pocket for another cigarette. A match flared, and as it was raised to the smoker’s face, Harry grinned in the darkness. The tiny flame had revealed the features of Elbert Joyce.
Three minutes of waiting. Harry sat behind the hedge, waiting.
Suddenly a car drove up and stopped. The door was opened instantly. Joyce stepped into the car, the door was closed, and the automobile was on its way down the street.
Harry scrambled hastily through the hedge and rushed to the street. He stood there in chagrin. His man had eluded him in the twinkling of an eye.
Harry had been unable to identify the car through the hedge. He had reached the street too late to see more than the tail-light and the black back of the car. The license plate could not be distinguished at that distance.
Harry cursed his stupidity. He had surprised Joyce while the man was on a mysterious errand, and now his quarry had escaped. It was another incident to add to his report, but that was all.
He decided to go back to the inn and bring out his own car. Perhaps if he drove to the town he might be able to track the other automobile, but he doubted it.
A car was coming up the avenue from the village. Harry stepped back on the sidewalk, and watched it through the darkness. It was moving slowly, and Harry had a sudden thought.
Could it, by any chance, be the same car that had picked up Joyce? Since Joyce was keeping a secret meeting, it was reasonable to suppose that the car might have turned and reversed its course after Joyce had entered it.
The car was moving slowly, and it seemed worth Harry’s while to follow it. For the avenue continued less than a mile, before it turned into a stretch of barren, poorly paved road. Furthermore Vincent thought of this as he was already dog-trotting after the automobile - the avenue went by the Laidlow residence.
The car was out of sight by the time Harry reached the millionaire’s home. He was disappointed when he could see no sign of an automobile either in the avenue or in the driveway.
Harry crossed the street, and was about to turn and go back, when he glanced up the avenue and dimly made out the tail-light of a distant car. He watched it intently. The car must have been parked. It was on the right side of the road.
Vincent hurried along to investigate. He came to a driveway. It was the entrance to the home of Ezekiel Bingham, the lawyer.
Then two thoughts clicked together. It must have been Bingham’s car that had come slowly along the street. The old man’s characteristic method of driving would be hard to duplicate.
Yet a glance up the drive failed to show any car there.
Harry kept on, with a new thought in mind. Perhaps the parked car belonged to the lawyer. Well, he remembered the license number of the lawyer’s car - he had noted it when following the car from town some days before.
Slipping among the trees that stood between the sidewalk and the avenue, Harry approached the car. The license plate was Bingham’s. But was Joyce in the automobile with the lawyer?
Harry, with deliberate boldness, slipped along beside the car, crouching near the grass. The car was parked beside a tree. Harry moved beside the thick tree-trunk, and listened.
He could hear nothing at first. If there were any conversation in the car, it must be in an undertone. Harry stepped a trifle forward, silent as a cat.
The front window of the car squeaked as it was lowered. Harry was glad that it had been closed when he had made his false step.
He listened again. Whoever was in the car must have been on guard for Harry could not catch the slightest sound of talk. It was tense there in the darkness.
Harry wondered what he would do if he were discovered. The best plan seemed to be to avoid discovery.
All was silent there on the road beyond Ezekiel Bingham’s home. It was an excellent spot for a secret conversation, for the lightest footfalls on the pavement or the motor of the smoothest car could easily be heard approaching.
So Vincent waited, breathless, knowing that if he did not betray himself, a conversation might eventually commence, unless -
He was right. Some one spoke.
It was the old lawyer. Harry could not catch the words of the querulous voice. He edged even closer to the car, arriving at his new position just as Ezekiel Bingham completed a sentence.
There came a distinct reply to the lawyer’s question.
Harry could hear the words - plainly now - from his new vantage point. But it was not that which made him exult; it was the voice of the speaker - a voice which he instantly recognized.
Old Bingham’s companion was Elbert Joyce!
CHAPTER XVI
WHAT VINCENT HEARD
“ALL right, Mr. Bingham. I’ll do anything you ask,” had come Joyce’s words to Harry Vincent’s ears.
“I knew I could count on you,” was the lawyer’s reply. The words were distinct, for Harry was closer to the car and the window was open.