“You mean you’re being watched—­shadowed?”

“Just that.”

“What do you intend to do?”

Storch shrugged.  “Being arrested and jailed is losing its novelty.  I’ll stick around awhile longer until a pet job or two is accomplished...  I’m particularly anxious to see Hilmer winged...  What’s your plan?”

“Plan?...  I have no plan.  I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.  I know one thing, though ...  I’m going to leave this place at once.”

Storch smiled evilly.  “Going to start plunging on that capital your wife threw your way yesterday?...  Well, well, you’ve got more initiative than I thought...  But, one piece of advice, my friend—­the easiest way to walk into a trap is to suddenly try to change your habits ... to rush headlong in an opposite direction.  You’d better stay here awhile and bluff it out.  They’d gobble you in one mouthful.”

Fred made no reply.  Indeed, the meal was finished in silence.

Presently Storch’s disciples began to drift in.  The meeting lasted almost until midnight.  They were all at fever heat, strung tensely by Storch’s unerring pressure.  At the last moment the man who had previously put the question concerning Hilmer prodded Storch again.

Storch fixed Fred suddenly with a gaze that pierced him through.  A silence fell upon the room.  Fred could feel every eye turned his way.  He rose with a curious fluttering movement of escape.

“There’s one man in this room who has earned the honor of getting Hilmer, if any man has,” Storch said, finally, in an extraordinarily cool and biting voice.  “Losing a wife isn’t of any great moment ... but to be laughed at—­that’s another matter.”

The silence continued.  Fred Starratt sat down again...  Shortly after this the gathering broke up.  Storch went to sleep immediately.  Fred blew out the light.  But he did not throw himself upon his couch this time.  Instead he opened the door softly and crept out.

A bright moon was riding high in the sky.  He went swiftly down the lane and stood for a moment upon the edge of the cliff which plunged down toward the docks.  The city seemed like a frozen bit of loveliness, waiting to be melted to fluid beauty by the fires of morning.  He must leave Storch at once, forever!  He turned for a backward glimpse of the house that had sheltered and almost entrapped him.  A figure darted in front of the lone street lamp and retreated instantly. Shadowed! Storch was right!

Suddenly Fred began to whistle—­gayly, loudly, with unquestionable defiance.  Then slowly, very slowly, he went back into the house and closed the door...  Storch was snoring contentedly.

CHAPTER XIX

The next afternoon Fred Starratt took the fifty-cent piece that he had earned as flunky to his wife and spent every penny of it in a cheap barber shop on the Embarcadero.  He emerged with an indifferently trimmed beard and his hair clipped into a semblance of neatness.  He felt better, in spite of his tattered suit and gaping footgear.  Hilmer’s card was still in his pocket.