CHAPTER XIX. PATSY ON THE TRAIL.

“Good work is right. It sure will be some stunt to find that particular car, as the chief said, but there’s more than one way to kill a cat. I’ll find it, by gracious, or lose a leg.”

These were Patsy Garvan’s mental declarations when he left the Wilton House at nine o’clock that morning, not only determined to find the motor car he had seen the previous night, but also to identify its chauffeur and his two passengers.

“I’ll go the whole hog,” he added to himself. “If I discover the chauffeur, I’ll not quit till I have learned who was with him. I’ll make good the limit, if I make good at all.”

His first visit proved futile, and he then consulted a directory and noted the location of every public garage. He then proceeded from one to another as quickly as possible, searching each in the same way, but with the same negative result.

In only one was he questioned by the proprietor, but Patsy was ready for him, and politely explained.

“I am thinking of buying a car next month, sir, and am merely having a look at these. I hope you have no objection.”

“Certainly not in that case,” was the reply. “Go as far as you like.”

“I’ll go far and go some, I reckon, before I hook onto the right one,” thought Patsy, who then had been thus at work for several hours, stopping only for lunch in a convenient restaurant. “The car might be out, of course, even if I were to hit the right garage, providing it is kept in a public one. I’ve got to take the chance. I’ll stick, too, by ginger, till I find it.”

It was after three o’clock when he emerged from the last garage on his list, and his face wore a look of irrepressible disappointment, though his ardor and determination had not waned.

“Where next?” he asked himself. “The day is two-thirds gone and I’m no better off than when I started. It would be impossible to visit every private garage. Nor could I identify that chauffeur in a passing car if he was in disguise last night, or tell whether the number plates have been removed or temporarily changed by some means. If changed, by Jove, there’s one way that might be done. There may be something in this.”

He was hit with a new idea, one that immediately struck him as promising. He had in mind, of course, that all of the license plates of that State were blue and numbered with white figures. Returning to the business section, from which his long search had taken him, he again consulted a directory and made a list of the paint stores, one of which he presently entered and questioned the proprietor.

His inquiries proved vain, however, and he hastened to another. Not until close upon five o’clock was he successful, when, accosting the proprietor of a small shop in a side street, he began the same line of inquiries.

“Do you keep vaseline or a paste of any kind that I could color with a pigment?”

“I have vaseline in small jars. What color do you want to make it?”

“Prussian blue,” said Patsy, that being the body color of the number plates.

“You can mix the Prussian blue powder with the vaseline all right?”

“Making a paste that would stick for a time and then wipe off easily?”

“Yes, surely.”

“Do you have many calls for Prussian blue?”

“Not many. You are the second one within a week, though,” said the proprietor. “Toby Monk bought a box three or four days ago. That’s the second, by the way, that he has bought within a month. He uses it mebbe the same as you do.”

“What’s his business? I’m an artist,” said Patsy, lest these inquiries might reach the ears of the said Toby Monk.

“He’s a chauffeur,” replied the storekeeper. “He owns a car and runs it as a jitney part of the time, when he’s not driving for a man who frequently employs him.”

“What man is that?” inquired Patsy, suppressing any betrayal of his elation.

“I don’t know his name.”

“Or where he lives?”

“No.”

“He’s a merchant, perhaps, or a doctor, or----”

“I don’t know anything about him. Why are you so anxious to know who and----”

“Oh, I’m not anxious,” Patsy cut in quickly. “I was only wondering how the fellow you spoke of used the color. Give me one can of it, smallest size, and a small jar of vaseline.”

Patsy’s explanation was glibly made, and the storekeeper appeared to attach no further significance to his customer’s curiosity. He wrapped up the two articles, and Patsy paid him and departed, afterward tossing the package mentioned among some weeds in a vacant lot.

“Only a lunkhead would have questioned him further,” he said to himself, now feeling almost sure that he had hit the right trail. “Toby Monk, eh? I’ll soon find out where he lives and what is generally known about him. Bought Prussian blue twice, has he? It’s a hundred to one that he has been using it to temporarily blot out a figure with blue paste matching the background of his number plate, or to so cover part of one or more figures as to form others, apparently giving the plate an entirely different number when engaged in a job like that of last night. Blue paste could be quickly wiped off after the job was done. I’ll find out mighty soon whether I am right and have nailed one of the suspects.”

He hastened to a near drug store, and again resorted to the city directory. He found that Toby Monk lodged in Green Street, and thither he then hastened.

He learned, after a little roundabout questioning in an opposite cigar store, that Toby Monk kept his car in an unused stable about a block away, and that he could usually be found between six and seven o’clock in Foley’s saloon and restaurant in Prince Street, where he often went for his beer and supper.

It then was nearly six, with dusk beginning to gather, and Patsy lost no time in seeking the stable mentioned. It stood in the back yard of an inferior wooden dwelling. The stable door was open, and the car stood within, apparently the one he had pursued the previous night, though he could not now see the number plates.

“I must make dead sure of it,” he said to himself, after sauntering by the house and turning merely a furtive gaze toward the stable. “Toby Monk may be in this house, since his car is here, and I’d better not venture through the yard. I’ll go round to the next street and steal between those two houses back of the stable. There may be a back window, and I could easily climb the fence.”

It took him about three minutes to reach the rear of the stable, which he accomplished without being seen, and he found the window he was seeking. He found it unlocked, moreover, and within half a minute he was crouching back of the touring car, inspecting the number plate.

It was as clean as a whistle, though the rest of the car was quite dusty. Obviously it had been recently wiped. Plainly, too, the number, 12674, could be apparently changed to 2671, the very number he had seen the previous night, by eliminating the 1 and the loop of the 4 by covering them with the blue paste.

“By Jove, this does settle it!” Patsy muttered, after a brief inspection. “Here’s a smooch of dirty blue grease, too, on the tire. Possibly I can find the----”

Turning quickly, he discovered what he had in mind. A wad of cotton waste soiled with greasy blue paste had been tossed amid some rubbish in one corner. On a beam near by was an open can of Prussian blue powder, and near it a tin box containing some of the paste and a soiled brush.

Patsy did not want more convincing evidence. He stole out by the way he had entered, easily departing unseen in the deepening dusk, and feeling reasonably sure that Toby Monk then would be found in the saloon mentioned.

“I’ll have a look, at all events,” he said to himself. “Toby was the chauffeur, all right, and through him I may identify the others. Gee whiz! It’s lucky I thought of that method to alter the number plate. It put me on the right track. I’ll drop the chief a line in the next letter box, lest I unexpectedly throw a shoe, and then I’ll keep up my good work. I’ll be hanged if I’ll quit a trail that’s just warming up.”

It was half past six, and dusk had turned to darkness, when Patsy approached Foley’s saloon in Prince Street, within a block of police headquarters. It was a restaurant and barroom of the better class, with a corresponding patronage, and he paused briefly on the opposite side to gaze through the broad plate-glass windows.

He could see nearly a score of men in the saloon, some talking and drinking at the bar, others seated in a row of side booths, and nearly as many in the rear restaurant. He was unable to discover one so like the chauffeur in height and figure as to be sure of his identity, however, and he then decided to enter and use his wits. Approaching the bar, he bought a glass of beer and lingered to drink it moderately. Taking a moment when one of the bartenders was idle and near him, he inquired carelessly:

“How far must I go to hit a jitney?”

“Main Street, two blocks east,” said the bartender tersely.

“Don’t any of them go through this street?”

“Sometimes, but not regular. Mebbe, though, that----” The bartender stopped and looked searchingly toward the restaurant, until his gaze fell upon a man at one of the side tables. “Ah, there he is! I thought he was there.”

“Thought who was here?”

“Toby Monk. He runs a jitney, but he is eating his supper. His car may be outside.”

“Where does he leave it?”

“Just above here.”

“There is no car out there,” said Patsy. “I just came in and would have seen it.”

“He’s put it up until later, then, as he often does about this time.”

“It don’t matter,” said Patsy. “The walking’s good.”

He turned away indifferently, and was pleased to see that other customers then claimed the attention of the bartender. Having carefully noted in which direction he had gazed a moment before, Patsy easily determined on which man his eyes had lingered, and he now furtively sized him up--a well-built man in the thirties, with a dark, smooth-shaven face, a square jaw, and thin lips, having a downward curve that gave him a sinister expression.

But Patsy’s train of thought was cut short when Toby Monk, rising abruptly from a seat at the table, took his cap from a wall rack and strode out through the saloon.

At the same moment a burly, red-featured man entered from the street, and the two met just within the swinging doors and scarce six feet from that end of the bar at which Patsy was standing. He saw Toby Monk start slightly, as if surprised, and then heard him exclaim, with inquiring scrutiny:

“Hello! What’s up, Shannon?”

“Shannon!” Patsy echoed the name mentally, with a thrill of increasing elation. “That’s the name of the attendant the chief saw in Doctor Devoll’s private room. He answers his description, too. Gee whiz, the net is tightening for fair! It now is a cinch that Doctor Devoll is one of the gang, and very possible the big finger.”

Patsy missed nothing that was said while these thoughts flashed through his mind. Shannon had stopped short the moment he saw the chauffeur, to whom he quickly replied, and with his gruff voice only slightly subdued:

“You’re wanted, Toby.”

“Wanted by----”

“You know,” Shannon cut in quickly. “I have orders for you.”

“What’s doing? Why did you come here after me?”

“I’ll tell you on the way. This is no time or place. Get a move on and go with me.”

“I’ll go with you also if it’s all the same to you two rascals--or whether it is or not,” thought Patsy as he edged toward the door and followed the two men to the street.