Spotty Morgan hesitated a moment, nodded silently, and then, arm in arm with the man whom he had pulled from the path of the big truck, went down the street, the mist and rain swallowing them up.

CHAPTER V

AMY’S APPEAL

Tinkling glasses formed a friendly rampart between Colonel Ashley and Spotty Morgan.  Spotty looked narrowly and shrewdly at the detective.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” remarked the gunman, speaking out of the side of his mouth, with scarcely a motion of his lips—­a habit acquired through long practice in preventing prison keepers from finding out that he was disobeying the rules regarding silence.  “Not for a minute did I expect to run across you here, Colonel As—­”

“Not that name, Spotty, if you please,” and the fisherman-detective smiled in easy fashion.  “You know my little habits in that regard.  I’m known here as Brentnall, and, if it’s all the same to you, just use that.  As for you, if Spotty—­”

“Oh, that suits me as well as any other.  I can change whenever I like.”  Spotty raised a glass to his lips, and, with a murmured “here’s how,” let the contents slide down his always-parched throat.

“That’s so, Spotty.  Well, I didn’t expect to see you here, I give you my word.  When did you leave New York?”

“Well, I come away—­”

“Hold on!” interrupted the colonel.  “Don’t answer.  I shouldn’t have asked.  I forgot you saved my life just now.  Gad! it isn’t the first time I’ve nearly passed over, but—­not in that way!” and he reached for his glass to conceal the shudder that passed over him as he thought of the rumbling wheels of the thundering truck.

“Well, Colonel, I—­”

“Never mind, Spotty.  Perhaps the less you talk the better off you’ll be.  Does anybody in town know you’re here?”

“Well, my picture—­”

“Yes, it is probably down at headquarters.  But they’re too busy to look for it now.  But they may—­later.  So far you haven’t been recognized then?”

“Only by you, and it’d take a pretty clever guy—­”

“No compliments, Spotty.  We’ve gotten over that.  You disguised yourself very well, but the freckles show through.”

“Yes, damn ’em!” heartily exploded the gunman.  “I can’t cover ’em up.  I’ve tried everything, but I guess I’ll have to go togged up like a colored man to fool the other bulls.  As for you, Colonel—­”

“There you go again!  Cut it out!  This is business.”

“Yes, good business for you, but bad for me.  I didn’t think you’d get after me so soon, Colonel!”

“I’m not after you, Spotty.”

The detective spoke quietly, but the effect on the man sitting across the table from him, in one of the less conspicuous cafes in Colchester, had the effect of a shout.

“Not after me?  You ain’t?” and Spotty drew away from the array of glasses and bottles so suddenly that he overturned a tumbler with its tinkling chunk of ice.  “Not after me, Colonel?”