“We’ll find out quick enough,” growled English Johnny, glancing back down the street. Harry twisted around in his seat and saw a policeman approaching.
English Johnny waved an arm for assistance.
Silently, Harry slipped the car into gear.
But English Johnny had leaped on to the running board. His beefy face, usually affable, was now distorted with anger. The cab hadn’t started rolling yet.
“Cab stealer, eh?” he shouted. “Maybe you were going to run me out somewhere to grab my dough. Well, your game’s up!”
His huge hand clamped upon Harry’s shoulder. An instant later, the man at the wheel swung his left elbow straight upward. It landed squarely on the point of English Johnny’s chin.
The man with the bulldog jaw was staggered for a moment. The interfering taxi driver joined English Johnny on the running board, and saved him from falling off.
Turning the wheel sharply with his right hand, and stepping on the gas, Harry drew back his left and thrust the open palm against English Johnny’s face. The big fellow went back, and the sharp turn of the car caused him to lose his balance and tumble in the street.
The other man was spilled from the running board by the force of English Johnny’s catapulting bulk.
Harry looked back over his shoulder. English Johnny had regained his feet. He was in the middle of the street, shaking his mighty fist and shouting incoherently.
The genuine driver ran back to give chase in his cab. The policeman had reached the scene of the recent action.
Harry swung his car grimly as he turned a corner. He raced down an avenue, cut off to the right along a side street, and commenced a twisting, bewildering course to elude pursuit.
Harry was driving rapidly. He had the feel of the wheel, and he was pleased with the easy way in which the cab handled. He roared onto Tenth Avenue and whirled down that broad thoroughfare until he reached the Excelsior Garage.
An attendant opened the door. Vincent parked the car in the vacant corner and changed to his street clothes.
“I’ll get the cab tomorrow,” he remarked as he left the garage. “Maybe I’ll send some one after it.”
He walked down the avenue and called to a passing cab, and was whisked to the Metrolite Hotel.
The telephone bell rang just as he was getting into bed.
“Mr. Vincent?” came a voice.
“Yes.”
“I wondered where you were. Did you forget that I was to call you this evening? I am the man who sold you the radio set for your friend. Where do you want it to go?”
Vincent caught the emphasis instantly.
“Where did the man go?”
The man must be English Johnny.
Slowly and carefully, Harry repeated the address that had been given him in the cab - the address which he had so wisely pretended to have forgotten.
“Thank you, Mr. Vincent,” came the voice.
The receiver clicked.
Harry walked to the window and whistled a soft tune as he gazed out at the twinkling lights of Manhattan. It had been an exciting night. He had tumbled into trouble and out again. English Johnny Harmon! What did this fellow have to do with the game?
He shrugged his shoulders. The whole affair was a mystery to him. What would be his next mission?
He was still wondering when he fell asleep.
CHAPTER XXIII
ENGLISH JOHNNY’S GAME
BIG, bluff English Johnny arrived at his uptown residence, still fuming because the pretending taxi driver had eluded him. He and the policeman had followed Harry Vincent in the other cab, but had given up the chase after a few blocks, for their quarry had gained too great a start.
Furthermore, they had not detected the license number of the fleeing cab. It had been well down the street before they had made any effort to note the license plate.
English Johnny, however, had remembered Harry’s face. Some day, he said to himself, he would encounter him, and would square accounts.
English Johnny had continued home in the other cab, but had given the driver a false address, and had dismissed the vehicle some distance from the house where he lived. He then walked up the street to an unpretentious building, unlocked the door of the house, and entered.
He climbed the steps to an upstairs room of the simple two-story house. There he opened a letter which he had found in the mail box.
The beefy-faced man whistled as he read. He was evidently pleased by the message he had received.
He tore the letter into pieces, dropped the fragments in a large ash tray, and burned them. After scattering the ashes from the window, he drew down the shade, and took a seat at a table in the corner of the room.
Half aloud, he repeated the information that he had gathered from the letter:
“Expect to complete matters tonight. We will meet away out on Saturday night, at eight o’clock. If plans are changed, you will hear by Saturday morning.”
It was now Thursday night. The meeting was to take place in two days.
“That’s good,” mumbled English Johnny. “The old boy is getting busy at last. Eight o’clock. That will get me back to Wang Foo’s by eleven.”
English Johnny took pen and paper, and penned a brief reply:
“Glad that work will be done soon. Will see you as stated. Have made all arrangements with my representative, and am anxious to obtain action.”
That was the content of the letter, but much of the spelling was incorrect. Even this short note, which bore no greeting and no signature, was something of a labor for English Johnny.
He sealed the letter in an envelope, scrawled an address, and affixed a stamp. He left the house and mailed the letter at the corner. Then he returned; locked the front door and went upstairs. There he sat in meditation.
“Bad business with that cab driver,” he mused. “Wonder who the fellow was. Wonder if he did forget this address. I’m laying low out here, and it ain’t good for nobody to know about it. Well, I’ll be careful until after Saturday night. You won’t poke your nose out of this place for two days, Johnny, old boy.
“Wang Foo is a wise chink. All the tips he gives are good. ‘Be careful’ is what he says. He’s right, Johnny. He’s right. It’s been good business with him in the past, and this job is going to be the best of all. Yes, sir. Play safe, Johnny.”
The big man listened intently for a moment. He fancied he had heard a click at the front door. He arose and went downstairs. The hall was very dim, for there was no light there; but he could see his way from the illumination in the street, for the two doors of the vestibule had glass panels.
Noises seldom annoyed English Johnny. But this slight sound, coming in upon his thoughts of danger, needed investigation.
He entered the vestibule. The outer door was locked as he had left it.
“Locked all right,” he said, “but the lock ain’t worth much. Old-fashioned. A smart guy could open it with a hairpin.”
The vestibule was shadowy - almost black.
English Johnny went into the hall and shut the inner door of the vestibule. He locked this, also. There was something in that pale gloom that troubled him. He sensed a difference in the hallway as he walked toward the stairs.
This was unusual, for English Johnny was not an imaginative man, susceptible to vague impressions. But he was keen and alert when his mind was centered upon anything important. As his heavy footfalls made the floor creak, he formed the definite belief that some one - or something - was following him.
He took advantage of the landing in the stairs to cast a sidelong glance down the passage he had just left.
The hall was a mass of shadows, and from his higher elevation, English Johnny was positive that he detected a motion in the blackness on the floor.
Yet he made no action that might betray his thoughts. English Johnny reasoned coldly. He knew that if any one had entered the house to do him bodily harm, the attack would have landed after he had closed the inner door of the vestibule. The dark hallway would have been the ideal spot.