Grace bowed to the doctor, then hurried out of the hotel, and jumping
into a taxi, ordered the driver to take her to Columbus Avenue and 96th
Street. She felt overjoyed, to know that the woman Duvall had been
seeking had at last been run to earth. She should, Grace determined, not
escape a second time.
At 96th Street, she found Leary, impatiently waiting for her in the
doorway of the corner drug store from which he had telephoned. He saw
her as soon as she left the cab and, tipping his cap, came forward and
joined her.
"She's in there yet, Miss," he whispered, jerking his thumb toward the
building on the opposite corner.
Grace glanced in the direction indicated. A somewhat dingy-looking
apartment house stood upon the corner; its lower floor occupied by a
florist's shop. The entrance was on 96th Street. Leaving Leary on the
opposite corner, she crossed the street and entered the vestibule of the
building.
The mail boxes on either side contained five names each, indicating that
there were ten apartments in the building. Grace looked over the
addresses in them carefully, but none of them meant anything to her.
None was at all familiar. The name on the torn card had been Ford, but
there was no such name among those before her. How was she to tell to
which apartment the woman had gone? The situation presented an
interesting problem.
Making a list of the names upon a visiting card, Grace determined to try
them each in turn. She had observed that the building contained no
elevator. She rang one of the bells, and almost at once the clicking of
the catch told her that the front door was unlocked. She turned the knob
and entered.
The occupants of the two ground floor apartments were named Weinberg and
Scully, respectively. Grace tried both doors in succession, asking for
Mrs. Weinberg at the one, and for Mrs. Scully at the other. In each case
the woman who appeared bore no resemblance to the one she sought, and
she was obliged to pretend that she had made a mistake. The doors were
at once closed in her face.
It was not until she reached the fourth floor that success rewarded her
efforts. The left-hand apartment on this floor had as its tenant a Miss
Norman. To Grace's delight, she had scarcely rung the bell, when the
woman she had been following appeared, wearing a flowered kimono.
She looked at Grace keenly, suspiciously, but with no sign of
recognition. Whether she did not know her, or merely pretended not to do
so, Grace was unable to say. After all, it made little difference.
Having now located the woman, it was only necessary to get away, upon
some pretense or other, and telephone to Richard. She felt highly
elated.
"What do you want?" the woman asked, quickly.
"Are you Miss Norman?"
"I am."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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