Isabel Ostrander

“ To Dennis' edged nerves the ride downtown seemed interminable. Twice the buzzer sounded and twice his eyes nearly crossed in the haste and eagerness of his backward glance, but Hill still slumped in his seat with his head drooping over upon his breast.
"Is it to the Bowery he's going?" he muttered after the second disappointment. "No wonder he stood looking for the car! 'Tis a fine walk we'd have had—!"
"Are you a cripple?" demanded McCarty. "We're not even to Thirty-fourth Street yet, and 'tis not a fire we're going to, you know!—There goes the buzzer again." ”

“ In an instant Dennis' long arms and legs writhed out of the shadows and he scrambled down with perilous haste to land at McCarty's feet.
"Some one—a man—got out of that window, straddled the wall and climbed down the back of that next house!" he exclaimed. "He'll be off across fences to the next street north and we'll lose him!"
"Like hell we will!" McCarty seized the despised ladder and setting it against the fence of the de Forests' yard he swarmed up it and hanging by his hands, dropped with a grunt to the ground. ”

“ McCarty had already produced two nickels and they made their way to the forward part of the car, seating themselves with hunched shoulders turned to the entrance.
"That was a narrow squeak!" breathed Dennis. "We've lost Martin now if ever he was trailing behind. 'Twill be a fine note if the car don't stop for your man, Mac, or if he changes his mind!"
"If you borrowed money the way you borrow trouble, Denny, you'd not have a friend left in the world," McCarty observed. "The car's slowing down now, and as for Martin I never knew him to get left yet!" ”

“ After that first comprehensive glance about him Hill did not even look back, but walked on as though lost in thought yet with a definite objective in view. He crossed an intersecting avenue or two and then, on reaching the fashionable thoroughfare on the farther side of which rose the park wall, he turned north.
"Where's he making for?" muttered Dennis.
"Where would any faithful employee be going when he's freed from being under an unjust suspicion but back to the place where he works?" McCarty returned. "I told you he'd play safe. ”

“ It's just the luck of the game. Shall I trail him, Mac? Maybe that clerk in the drugstore is a kind of a go-between in whatever business brought him out and he's finished what he came for. He's certainly walking as though he was through in this neighborhood."
"And good reason!" McCarty commented. "However, 'tis no good palavering over. Trail him, Martin, but if he starts uptown on a car or in a taxi he'll be on his way back to the Creveling house with nothing more doing to-night as far as he is concerned, so you come back here. ”

“ Clancy ought to happen along soon on his beat and we'll wait for him."
"But why would this fellow Hill go back to the house first if he's got something else on his mind?" Dennis was disposed to argument. "There's little Creveling needs of a valet now."
"For an alibi; he'll not be caught again without one," McCarty replied. "It was a woman's voice, you know, that telephoned out to the Waverly country place, and I'm thinking that 'tis maybe because of a woman that Hill won't open his mouth about where he was last night."
"It might not be the same woman, though," Dennis suggested helpfully. ”

“ McCarty responded. "The houses on both sides of the Crevelings are closed but there might be a way he could get out, at that.—Martin!" he added as the detective from headquarters approached. "Go back a couple of blocks, cross the avenue and climb over the park wall; creep along the other side of it till you are just opposite the Creveling house—'tis that white one there in the middle of the next block—and watch both doors. You got a good look at Hill?" ”

“ Understand?"
"Right, Mac." Martin grinned at Denny. "The chief thought your side kick here would be with you. I could tell a mile off, Riordan, that you were on the job!"
He walked off chuckling at Dennis' discomfiture and McCarty remarked consolingly:
"Never you mind, Denny, every man to his work and it's your own line you'll be following to-night."
"'My own line'?" Dennis repeated. "You're not thinking of starting a fire, are you, Mac?" ”

“ Clancy exclaimed. "Getting you through, I mean. As to keeping it from the help at the Crevelings', the cook at the de Forests' two doors away had a run-in with that Sarah, the butler's wife, and she won't speak to any of them. Her and me are real friendly and many's the hot cup of coffee she's given me on the cold nights this past winter. ”