II.
The Hat Trick
1
Ned Beaumont, wearing a hat that did not quite fit him, followed the porter carrying his bags through Grand Central Terminal to a Forty-second Street exit, and thence to a maroon taxicab. He tipped ti-me porter, climbed into the taxicab, gave its driver the name of a hotel off Broadway in the Forties, and settled back lighting a cigar. He chewed the cigar more than he smoked it as the taxicab crawled through theater-bound traffic towards Broadway.
At Madison Avenue a green taxicab, turning against the light, ran full tilt into Ned Beaumont’s maroon one, driving it over against a car that was parked by the curb, hurling him into a corner in a shower of broken glass.
He pulled himself upright and climbed out into the gathering crowd. He was not hurt, he said. He answered a policeman’s questions. He found the hat that did not quite fit him and put it on his head. He had his bags transferred to another taxicab, gave the hotel’s name to the second driver, and 1-muddled back in a corner, white-faced and shivering, while the ride lasted.
‘When he had registered at the hotel he asked for his mail and was given two telephone-memorandum-slips and two sealed envelopes without postage stamps.
He asked the bellboy who took him to his room to get him a pint of rye whisky. When the boy had gone he turned the key in the door and read the telephone-memoranda. Both slips were dated that day, one marked 4:50 P. M., the other 8:05 P. M. He looked at his wrist-watch. It was 8:45 P. M.
The earlier slip read: _At the Gargoyle_. The later read: _At Tom & Jerry’s. Will phone later_. Both were signed: _Jack_.
He opened one of the envelopes. It contained two sheets of paper covered by bold masculine handwriting, dated the previous day.
_She is staying at the Matin, room 1211, registered as Eileen Dale, Chicago. She did some phoning from the depot and connected with a man and girl who live E. 3oth. They went to a lot of places, mostly speakies, probably hunting him, but don’t seem to have much luck. My room is 734. Man and girl named Brook_.
The sheet of paper in the other envelope, covered by the same handwriting, was dated that day.
_I saw Deward this morning, but he says he did not know Bernie was in town. Will phone later_.
Both of these messages were signed: _Jack_.
Ned Beaumont washed, put on fresh linen from his bags, and was lighting a cigar when the bellboy brought him his pint of whisky. He paid the boy, got a tumbler from the bathroom, and drew a chair up to the bedroom-window. He sat there smoking, drinking, and staring down at the other side of the street until his telephone-bell rang.
“Hello,” he said into the telephone. “Yes, Jack . . . Just now. . . Where? . . . Sure. . . . Sure, on my way.”
He took another drink of whisky, put on the hat that did not quite fit him, picked up the overcoat he had dropped across a chair-back, put it on, patted one of its pockets, switched off the lights, and went out.
It was then ten minutes past nine o’clock.
2
Through double swinging glazed doors under an electric sign that said Tom & Jerry’s down the front of a building within sight of Broadway, Ned Beaumont passed into a narrow corridor. A single swinging door in the corridor’s left wall let him into a small restaurant.
A man at a corner-table stood up and raised a forefinger at him. The man was of medium height, young and dapper, with a sleek dark rather good-looking face.
Ned Beaumont went over to him. “‘Lo, Jack,” he said as they shook hands.
“They’re upstairs, the girl and those Brook people,” Jack told him. “You ought to be all right sitting here with your back to the stairs. I can spot them if they go out, or him coming in, and there’s enough people in the way to keep him from making you.”
Ned Beaumont sat down at Jack’s table. “They waiting for him?”