“Clean as a whistle! I rather expected he would. My start was a trifle late. The best I hoped for was a glimpse, but I was denied even that. The street was blank from end to end when I emerged from the house, and the boulevard was equally deserted. That, of course, is significant, eh?”
“You mean that he didn’t run far? That he may have turned in some place?”
“That is one explanation. Another is that an auto was waiting for him at the corner, engine running and all ready for a quick start. That, as a matter of fact, is what I had in mind when I ran out. I thought that at least I might hear it departing. Not a sound! You may be right about his turning in some place; it’s the logical assumption, for I wasn’t far behind him, surely.”
“In heaven’s name,” broke in Ashenhurst, “what was it? Who was he, if it was a man?”
“I can’t say, of course; but I did get an idea during the night, and it has involved all this reading without much result.” He indicated the scattered journals and smiled faintly.
“Why The Playbill?” I asked.
“Why not?” countered Lavender. “The fellow is no amateur, I fancy. He ran like a professional of some kind—and jumped like a Russian dancer. Consider that, now, in connection with his amazing make-up, and there emerges somebody connected with the stage. Don’t you think?”
“Um-m! Maybe!” I was not enthusiastic.
“Oh, it’s a long shot, of course. But we must consider probabilities until they are shown to be improbabilities. I base my idea on more than a superficial appearance. I’ve been trying to guess what lies behind.”
“I lay awake guessing half the night,” contributed Ashenhurst bitterly.
“And exactly what did you expect to find in The Playbill?” I insisted.
“These are old Playbills. The file goes back three mouths, and ends with last week’s issue. I consider it at least possible that this ingenious fellow had been out of a job for a time. And this valuable weekly carries several columns of cards of professional gentlemen who are ‘at liberty.’ I’m not looking for any particular person; I’m looking for anybody who fits the description I have imagined. You see, if I am right, this fellow is not the principal in the case. What the case is, we have yet to discover; but I think this man is only a subordinate. He may not even know why he runs as he does!”
“I can’t believe that, Lavender,” I demurred.
“It’s very easy to believe,” he assured me. “If for no other reason, I believe him to be a subordinate because he shows himself. If the game is important—and it’s too mad not to be—the principal would not show himself so openly. He might be caught. Suppose instead of waiting upstairs in Ashenhurst’s room, I had been waiting for him in a passageway. I’d have had him, or seen where he went. I think the principal doesn’t care whether this fellow is captured or not. He’d rather the man wouldn’t be caught, of course, but it is not of great importance one way or another.”
“And this principal?” queried Ashenhurst.
“Is working elsewhere,” said Lavender.
“Elsewhere! Then why, for heaven’s sake—?”
Lavender shrugged. “Well, well,” he said, “I may be wrong. I’m no super-detective, Ashenhurst. It’s bad business, I know, to imagine a case and then twist the facts to fit it; but I assure you it’s as safe a gamble as any other method. Any way you tackle a case, you’re as likely to be wrong as right.”
“But, confound it, Jimmie!” I exploded, “why should this fellow show himself at all, in that crazy regalia?”
“Exactly,” agreed Lavender. “Why should he? There is only one conceivable reason that holds water: he wants to be seen. If a man paints himself black and parades the city between sandwich-boards, he’s bound to attract attention. Obviously then, he does it in order to attract attention. But whose attention does our friend want to attract? Just as obviously, he wants to attract Ashenhurst’s attention.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed that young man. “Well, he succeeded!”
“He did, indeed. Oh, I’m sure enough of my ground as far as I have gone. You live in Cambridge Court, and so this fellow runs in Cambridge Court. But other people live in Cambridge Court. You, however, sit up late; your window, at midnight, is the only one in the block that shows a light. There was no other light when I ran out last night, and I am sure there had not been for some time. Further, this fellow ran by four nights in a row—at least four. There may have been other, earlier nights when you didn’t hear the footsteps, but on four nights anyway, he ran past your window. The first two nights you did not look out; the third night you did. He heard your exclamation, and felt sure that he had attracted your attention. Last night was the test, as I read it; and last night we all looked out. And last night, he knew he had attracted you.”
“The deuce he did!”
“Yes,” I said, “how do you know that, Jimmie?”
“Because,” said Lavender, “I saw him look up. You fellows were excited, and were concentrating on a running statue. You didn’t exactly believe in it, but the statue was in your minds—naturally. So all you saw was a running statue—an impossibility. I knew perfectly well that it was not a statue, and was determined not to be too surprised by the sight. So I watched carefully; and as he fled past he looked up at the window—just a half turn of the head as he leaped, but he looked! I saw him! And your lights were out, and my head was half-visible; I took care that it should be. Ergo, our friend believes he saw you looking out, and today he knows that he has succeeded in attracting your attention.”
“Perhaps he saw us all,” I remarked.
“I hope not,” said Lavender vigorously, “and I think not. I kept you a trifle behind me, in deep shadow. You see, my own plans were laid.”
Ashenhurst whistled solemnly for a moment. “And what’s the next step?” he asked, at length. “Will he run again, tonight?”
“Oh, yes, I think he will run every night until something happens.”
“What?” we demanded in the same breath.
“I don’t know,” answered Jimmie Lavender.
Ashenhurst whistled again while he thought that over. “You make me nervous,” he said finally.
“You have a right to be nervous, perhaps,” Lavender nodded. “Although probably you are not in any serious danger. But Gilruth will stay with you every night from now until—well, until the thing happens, whatever it is—and I shall not be far away.”
There was a silence for a moment, during which Lavender looked hard at Ashenhurst. Suddenly he spoke.
“I don’t want to be impertinent, Ashenhurst, but is there any secret about you? Anything in your life that you wish to conceal? Anything somebody else would like to know?”
“Good Lord, no!” The student’s reply was prompt and final.
“You don’t conceal a treasure anywhere in your room, by any chance?”
Ashenhurst
