“Guess your man is going to run for the Park!” cried the taxicab driver.  “Hold on—­ I want my money first, young fellow!”

Dick had leaped to the ground, bent on catching the fleeing individual.  He pulled some bills from his pocket.

“Here is five dollars—­ wait for me!” he cried.  “Or maybe you had better come along.  That fellow is a criminal.”

“I’ll wait here,” answered the taxicab driver.  He did not wish to become mixed up in an affair which he did not understand.

The corner of Central Park at Fifty-seventh Street was already in sight.  The bearded man ran swiftly across the broad plaza and the sidewalk.  Then he darted along the side of the Park and on to the path leading to the menagerie.  In a moment more the darkness of the place swallowed him up.

“Hey there, what are you running for?” It was a challenge from a Park policeman, as he stepped in front of Dick.

“I wanted to catch that man who just ran in here,” explained the youth.

“I didn’t see any man.”

“Well, he went in here just now.  He ran away from the Outlook Hotel in a taxi and got out just below here.”

“Who is he?” asked the policeman, becoming interested.

“I don’t know.  But he tried to get in my room at the hotel.  The hotel men want to catch him.”

“Humph!  Well he’s gone now.”

Dick continued to look around for the escaped man, but it was all to no purpose.  Then he returned to where he had left the taxicab.  He found his driver in earnest conversation with the other driver.

“That fellow didn’t pay me a cent!” complained the other driver, bitterly.  “An’ after me doing my best for him, too!”

“Why did you try to run away?” asked Dick, coldly.

“I thought it was all right.  He said he had a ’phone message that his father was dying and he must git up town at once, and he promised me big pay.  I didn’t know he was trying to git away from anybody.”

“Well, it’s too bad he got away from all of us.  By the way, can you describe him to me?” went on Dick, curiously.

“Don’t you know him?”

“Only by reputation—­ and that’s bad,” and Dick smiled grimly.

“He was tall and thin and didn’t have much hair on his head.  I think them whiskers was false.”

“Anything else that you remember?”

“He had two of his front teeth filled with gold.  I noticed it when he yawned under the electric lights.”

“Two front teeth filled with gold!” cried Dick, in amazement.  “And tall and thin!  Can it be possible!”

“Do you know him after all?” asked the man who had given the information.

“Perhaps I do.  Tell me some more about him.  How was he dressed and how did he talk?”

As well as he was able the taxicab man described the individual who had gotten away.  As he proceeded Dick became more and more convinced that he was on the right trail.