He hesitated for a moment outside the door. Then he headed straight across the road. They all ran to the door to look after him. His huge long frame, clad in blue dungarees that clung to his thighs, shone in the light of the lamps as he crossed the wide road, one foot advancing past the other slowly, the trousers brushing with the sound of hay being cut with a scythe. Then the figure left the area of light and grew dim as he gained the pavement at the far side, and turned to the left under the shadow of an abrupt tall house. Then he fell away into the night. Presently a lean slouching figure crept across the street in pursuit. He also disappeared under the shadow of the abrupt house. Nobody noticed him. It was Mulholland tracking Gypo. CHAPTER IX Around the corner Gypo halted. He put his hand against the wall behind him and stood motionless, with his head turned back, listening. He had heard a step following him. But the steps halted also. He listened for several seconds breathlessly and heard nothing further. Then he snorted and turned his head slowly to his front. He looked ahead into the darkness, dreamily. He stood perfectly still. Then his face broke slowly into a sort of smile and his eyes grew dim. He trembled slightly. He glanced about him sharply and furtively several times. There was a strange, almost mysterious “significance” in his movements, slight, sudden, furtive movements. Then he stared steadily down along the dark, narrow street that stretched ahead of him, ending at the far end in a high wall, with a dim lamp at one corner suggesting that another street branched off it to the left. He winked his right eye at the lamp and a roguish expression creased his face as he did so. “Why not,” he muttered aloud. “Why shouldn’t I go an’ have a bit o’ fun? Wha’? A few bob on the women an’ a few drinks to keep me supper warm.” A wave of passion surged through his body. He was on the point of opening his mouth to utter a yell, but instead he thrust his hand into his trousers pocket anxiously and groped for his wad of money. He found it. He sighed easily. “They might have pinched it,” he muttered with a look of gravity in his little eyes. “That mob around there are a lot o’ wasters. Ye couldn’t trust yer shirt with ’em on a winter’s night. They’d take the charley from under a pope’s bed. Terrible lot o’ criminals around lately.” Then his face lit up with eagerness as his mind swerved back again to the contemplation of that lamp at the far end . . . and where that street led. He swallowed his breath with a loud noise and set out towards the lamp. Almost immediately a head peered around the corner behind him. The head watched until Gypo turned to the left at the far end past the lamp. Then a man darted around the corner and raced down the street in pursuit. It was Mulholland tracking Gypo.