“I don’t reckon I’ll ride in that taxi any farther.  Johnnie will have to settle the bill.  Hope he plays his hand better than I did,” he said aloud.

The rain pelted down as he moved toward the brighter lighted street that intersected the one where he had been dropped.  The lights of a saloon caught his eye at the corner.  He went in, got police headquarters on the wire, and learned that a car answering the description of the one used by his abductor had been headed into Central Park by officers and that the downtown exits were being watched.

He drew what comfort he could from that fact.

Presently he picked up another taxi.  He hesitated whether to go to the address Annie had given him or to join the chase uptown.  Reluctantly, he decided to visit the house.  His personal inclination was for the hunt rather than for inactive waiting, but he sacrificed any immediate chance of adventure for the sake of covering the possible rendezvous of the gang.

Clay paid his driver and looked at the house numbers as he moved up the street he wanted.  He was in that part of the city from which business years ago marched up-town.  Sometime in decades past people of means had lived behind these brownstone fronts.  Many of the residences were used to keep lodgers in.  Others were employed for less reputable purposes.

His overcoat buttoned to his neck, Clay walked without hesitation up the steps of the one numbered 243.  He rang the bell and waited, his right hand on the pocket of his overcoat.

The door opened cautiously a few inches and a pair of close-set eyes in a wrinkled face gimleted Clay.

“Whadya want?”

“The old man sent me with a message,” answered the Arizonan promptly.

“Spill it.”

“Are you alone?”

“You know it.”

“Got everything ready for the girl?”

“Say, who the hell are youse?”

“One of Slim’s friends.  Listen, we got the kid—­picked her up at a drug-store.”

“I don’ know watcher fairy tale’s about.  If you gotta message come through with it.”

Clay put his foot against the door to prevent it from being closed and drew his hand from the overcoat pocket.  In the hand nestled a blue-nosed persuader.

Unless the eyes peering into the night were bad barometers of their owner’s inner state, he was in a panic of fear.

“Love o’ Gawd, d-don’t shoot!” he chattered.  “I ain’t nobody but the caretaker.”

He backed slowly away, followed by Lindsay.  The barrel of the thirty-eight held his eyes fascinated.  By the light of his flash Clay discovered the man to be a chalk-faced little inconsequent.

“Say, don’t point that at me,” the old fellow implored.

“Are you alone?”

“I told you I was.”

“Is Jerry comin’ himself with the others?”

“They don’t none of them tell me nothin’.  I’m nobody.  I’m only Joey.”