I drove on slowly, thinking.
The building in which the Kid had spent the night and this building into which he had just gone had their rears on the same back street, on opposite sides, a little more than half a block apart. If the Kid’s room was in the rear of his building, and he had a pair of strong glasses, he could keep a pretty sharp eye on all the windows—and probably much of the interiors—of the rooms on that side of the McAllister Street building.
Last night he had ridden a block out of his way. Having seen him sneak into the back door just now, my guess was that he had not wished to leave the street car where he could be seen from this building. Either of his more convenient points of departure from the car would have been in sight of this building. This would add up to the fact that the Kid was watching someone in this building, and did not want them to be watching him.
He had now gone calling through the back door. That wasn’t difficult to explain. The front door was locked, but the back door—as in most large buildings—probably was open all day. Unless the Kid ran into a janitor or someone of the sort, he could get in with no trouble. The Kid’s call was furtive, whether his host was at home or not.
I didn’t know what it was all about, but that didn’t bother me especially. My immediate problem was to get to the best place from which to pick up the Kid when he came out.
If he left by the back door, the next block of Redwood Street—between Franklin and Gough—was the place for me and my coupe. But he hadn’t promised me he would leave that way. It was more likely that he would use the front door. He would attract less attention walking boldly out the front of the building than sneaking out the back. My best bet was the corner of McAllister and Van Ness. From there I could watch the front door as well as one end of Redwood Street.
I slid the coupe down to that corner and waited.
Half an hour passed. Three quarters.
The Whosis Kid came down the front steps and walked toward me, buttoning his overcoat and turning up the collar as he walked, his head bent against the slant of the rain.
A curtained black Cadillac touring car came from behind me, a car I thought had been parked down near the City Hall when I took my plant here.
It curved around my coupe, slid with chainless recklessness in to the curb, skidded out again, picking up speed somehow on the wet paving.
A curtain whipped loose in the rain.
Out of the opening came pale fire-streaks. The bitter voice of a small-caliber pistol. Seven times.
The Whosis Kid’s wet hat floated off his head—a slow balloon-like rising.
There was nothing slow about the Kid’s moving.
Plunging, in a twisting swirl of coat-skirts, he flung into a shop vestibule.
The Cadillac reached the next corner, made a dizzy sliding turn, and was gone up Franklin Street. I pointed the coupe at it.
Passing the vestibule into which the Kid had plunged, I got a one-eyed view of him, on his knees, still trying to get a dark gun untangled from his overcoat. Excited faces were in the doorway behind him. There was no excitement in the street. People are too accustomed to automobile noises nowadays to pay much attention to the racket of anything less than a six-inch gun.
By the time I reached Franklin Street, the Cadillac had gained another block on me. It was spinning to the left, up Eddy Street.
I paralleled it on Turk Street, and saw it again when I reached the two open blocks of Jefferson Square. Its speed was decreasing. Five or six blocks further, and it crossed ahead of me—on Steiner Street—close enough for me to read the license plate. Its pace was moderate now. Confident that they had made a clean getaway, its occupants didn’t want to get in trouble through speeding. I slid into their wake, three blocks behind.
Not having been in sight during the early blocks of the flight, I wasn’t afraid that they would suspect my interest in them now.
Out on Haight Street near the park panhandle, the Cadillac stopped to discharge a passenger. A small man—short and slender—with cream-white face around dark eyes and a tiny black mustache. There was something foreign in the cut of his dark coat and the shape of his gray hat. He carried a walking-stick.
The Cadillac went on out Haight Street without giving me a look at the other occupants. Tossing a mental nickel, I stuck to the man afoot. The chances always are against you being able to trace a suspicious car by its license number, but there is a slim chance.
My man went into a drug store on the corner and used the telephone. I don’t know what else he did in there, if anything. Presently a taxicab arrived. He got in and was driven to the Marquis Hotel. A clerk gave him the key to room 761. I dropped him when he stepped into an elevator.
III
At the Marquis I am among friends.
I found Duran, the house copper, on the mezzanine floor, and asked him:
“Who is 761?”
Duran is a white-haired old-timer who looks, talks, and acts like the president of an exceptionally strong bank. He used to be captain of detectives in one of the larger Middle Western cities. Once he tried too hard to get a confession out of a safe-ripper, and killed him. The newspapers didn’t like Duran. They used that accident to howl him out of his job.
“761?” he repeated in his grandfatherly manner. “That is Mr. Maurois, I believe. Are you especially interested in him?”
“I have hopes,” I admitted. “What do you know about him?”
“Not a great
