Page:Episodes-before-thirty.djvu/199

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Episodes before Thirty

icy streets arm in arm, numerous people still about on various errands, tramcars and elevated trains still roaring, saloons and joints blazing with light, wide open till dawn, while the old man, rejuvenated and stimulated by the drug, discoursed eloquently the whole way, I dragging by his side, silent, depressed, weary with pains that seemed more poignant then than hunger or mere physical fatigue.

The next night it would be the same, and the one after that, and the next one after that too--the search continued. It wore me down. I saw the eyeglass staring furtively at me from behind every corner, even in the daytime. His footstep sounded behind me often. At night I locked my door, for fear he might steal back into the room.... Once or twice I reported to headquarters that I was on the trail, but the detective had lost interest in the case; a conviction was doubtful, anyhow; he was not "going to sit around catching flies"; only the fact that I was a reporter on the Sun made him pause. "Telephone when you get him," he said, "and I'll come up and do the rest." Much fresh information about Boyde had also come my way; he had even stolen the vases from a Church communion table--though he denied this in his confession later--and pawned them. In every direction, and this he did not deny, he had borrowed money in my name, giving me the worst possible character while doing so. Probably indeed, I never lived down all he said about me....

It was a bitter, and apparently, an endless search. From the West Side joints, we visited the East Side haunts of vice and dissipation. I now knew Boyde too well to think he would "fly high"; his tastes were of the lowest. The ache it all gave me I can never describe....

We went from place to place as hour after hour passed. We found his trail, and each time we found it my heart failed me. A woman, gorgeously painted, showing her silk stockings above the knee, her atmosphere reeking of bad scent and drink, came sidling up, murmuring this

and that.... The Doctor's eye was on me, though he said

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