Harry was thoughtful as he stood on the porch.
The game had not been one for large stakes. No one gambled high at Holmwood Arms. Why then was Joyce operating here?
Harry smiled as he deduced the answer.
Joyce was in Holmwood on a mission. His services were required by some one - for something. He had been at the inn less than a week. Probably he was still awaiting a call.
In the meantime, the opportunity for picking up expense money by his artifice at the card table was too good to resist. Hence the shifty work that Harry had observed. It was a clew to Joyce’s main purpose, in that it proved the man to be a crook of some caliber.
Here was something to report to Fellows. Harry had not yet heard from the insurance broker, nor had he visited New York.
He’d wait one day more, Harry decided. He would watch Joyce during the afternoon and evening, and perhaps gain some added information.
The day after tomorrow he would report to the office in the Grandville Building.
CHAPTER XV
TWO MEN MEET
At breakfast the next morning, Harry Vincent ate his bacon and eggs with real zest. The day was pleasant and he was satisfied. As the agent of The Shadow, he was showing progress. He wondered just what significance would be attached to the information he had gained concerning Elbert Joyce.
More than that, he had a positive feeling that something else would follow. From the moment that he had come upon Joyce working out a puzzle in the paper, Harry had started on a steady trail. A night had intervened; but he believed the day held more in store.
Joyce was certainly awaiting a definite time. The man had been at Holmwood Arms for several days now. Perhaps he might wait longer. Harry hoped not. He disliked leaving Holmwood before Joyce had taken action. It would be best to wait before reporting to Fellows.
Joyce was not at breakfast, but he appeared on the porch a short time after. Harry greeted him cordially, then left for his room and killed an hour by punching the typewriter.
After that, Harry strolled down to the porch. Joyce was still there.
The morning and afternoon passed slowly. Harry walked downtown after lunch, but did not stay long. He knew that his place was at the inn, keeping tabs on Joyce’s actions. But nothing happened before dinner, and he found himself seated at the same table with Joyce in the dining-room.
“How was everything today?” inquired the affable Joyce.
“So-so,” answered Harry. “I did a little writing, off and on. The weather’s too mild and pleasant to bother much about work.”
“Perhaps you find it that way. I’m anxious to get moving, though,” replied Joyce. “I’m looking forward to my traveling job.”
“That’s the proper spirit.”
“But I still have a wait ahead of me. Two weeks at least.”
“It’s a long while if you’re bored.”
“Too long. But it’s all in the game.”
The conversation pleased Harry. He knew that Joyce would try to lay a false trail as to the length of time he intended to stay at the inn. “Two weeks” would more likely prove to be two days.
Harry sensed that action was approaching.
Joyce found a note in his mail-box after dinner. He read it by the desk in the lobby and carried it with him as he strolled out to the porch. Harry, watching from the doorway, observed him tear the paper to small pieces which he scattered in the wind.
There was a card game in the lounge. Joyce came in and watched. He was invited to participate, but declined. Harry, idling by the window-seat, regarded this as important. If Joyce could resist the temptation of taking some more easy money from the card players at Holmwood Arms, it meant that he had important work afoot that night.
Harry pulled a few written sheets of paper from his pocket, and pretended to read them as he walked from the lounge into the lobby. He timed his progress so that his path converged with that of Joyce. They almost bumped together, due to Harry’s feigned preoccupation.
Joyce laughed.
“Don’t try that stunt crossing a street,” he warned.
Harry grinned sheepishly.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” he said. “Guess I’ll wander upstairs and type these notes while they’re still fresh. I scrawl away so fast that sometimes I can’t read my own writing.”
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 come 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, anyone 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. Stopping, he moved along the line of the avenue. It was fortunately a moonless night. There was little likelihood of anyone 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.
