“Well, I’m a damned fool,” he muttered,
and went out into the street.
He was disappointed and a trifle sheepish. Life
was full of queer chances, that was all. No
resemblance on earth, no coincidence of birthplace,
could make him believe that Judson Clark, waster,
profligate and fugitive from the law was now sitting
up at night with sick children, or delivering babies.
After a time he remembered the prescription in his
hand, and was about to destroy it. He stopped
and examined it, and then carefully placed it in his
pocket-book. After all, there were things that
looked queer. The fellow had certainly evaded
that last question of his.
He made his way, head bent, toward the station.
He had ten minutes to wait, and he wandered to the
newsstand. He made a casual inspection of its
display, bought a newspaper and was turning away,
when he stopped and gazed after a man who had just
passed him from an out-bound train.
The reporter looked after him with amused interest.
Gregory, too! The Livingstone chap had certainly
started something. But it was odd, too.
How had Gregory traced him? Wasn’t there
something more in Gregory’s presence there than
met the eye? Gregory’s visit might be,
like his own, the desire to satisfy himself that the
man was or was not Clark. Or it might be the
result of a conviction that it was Clark, and a warning
against himself. But if he had traced him, didn’t
that indicate that Clark himself had got into communication
with him? In other words, that the chap was Clark,
after all? Gregory, having made an inquiry of
a hackman, had started along the street, and, after
a moment’s thought, Bassett fell into line behind
him. He was extremely interested and increasingly
cheerful. He remained well behind, and with
his newspaper rolled in his hand assumed the easy
yet brisk walk of the commuters around him, bound
for home and their early suburban dinners.
Half way along Station Street Gregory stopped before
the Livingstone house, read the sign, and rang the
doorbell. The reporter slowed down, to give
him time for admission, and then slowly passed.
In front of Harrison Miller’s house, however,
he stopped and waited. He lighted a cigarette
and made a careful survey of the old place. Strange,
if this were to prove the haven where Judson Clark
had taken refuge, this old brick two-story dwelling,
with its ramshackle stable in the rear, its small
vegetable garden, its casual beds of simple garden
flowers set in a half acre or so of ground.
A doctor. A pill shooter. Jud Clark!
Elizabeth had gone about all day with a smile on her
lips and a sort of exaltation in her eyes. She
had, girl fashion, gone over and over the totally
uneventful evening they had spent together, remembering
small speeches and gestures; what he had said and she
had answered.
