The Dog with the Wooden Leg

Chapter VI. Trailing by Ear.

He came out of the house with Dick at his usual time the next day. Again Mrs. Schultz, the janitress, was loitering on the doorstep, said good morning as he went by. Everything seemed just like other days. Only, Celia hadn’t gone to work today. She was upstairs in the flat with a raging, unshaven, tied-up detective on her hands, with orders to see that he stayed where he was until her grandfather had his chance to clear his name.

There would be no danger attached to it so far as he was concerned, Marty had assured her over and over. Naturally he couldn’t expect to tackle a gang, bring them in unaided. But he would find some way of singling out whoever it was had been using him for a dope runner, maybe even tracing him back to his base of operations: and the rest was up to the narcotic squad. To which Burkhardt growled contemptuously:

“Sure! You’re so inconspicuous, with your smoked glasses and peglegged dog, no one would ever notice you following them! What d’ye expect to do, tie a cowbell around his neck?”

“When I come back,” Marty answered, “I’ll be able to tell you where the headquarters of this dope ring is, which is more than you’ve been able to find out by yourself, with two good eyes!”

They advanced along the street now in their usual fashion. Yesterday’s twenty-dollar “take” had been carefully replaced in Dick’s leg, since but for the intervention of Burkhardt, Marty would never have known it was there in the first place, and he wasn’t supposed to even now.

The usual crowd of rubbernecks started to form as soon as they were out of their own neighborhood, and the usual foolish questions were asked. Then the usual “Missourian” stepped forward, impeded them while he inspected the leg.

Was this his man? Marty didn’t make any attempt to find out. It was daylight all around him, for everyone but him; the odds were still too unequal, like last night before he’d smashed that light bulb. On the way back was the time to try to tag him.

Two crossings away, as they stood waiting for the light, he ordered Dick: “Stand up and take my hat off for me.” This was only so that he could get the dog in a position where he could find out if the switch had already been made, without bending over and examining the leg, which would have tipped his hand. Eyes might still be watching him from a distance. The dog reared up against him on its two hind legs, caught the brim of Marty’s hat between his teeth, removed it for him. Eut while Dick was up against him like that, body to body, Marty quickly thrust one exploring finger into the leather shield. The wad of folded money was gone. A cube of paper, folded tightly over something crumbly, was there instead. So that had been his man back there just now.

Loiterers still hanging around watching, applauded the dog’s cleverness as it dropped down again to all fours with the hat between its jaws. A coin or two dropped into it in appreciation; that covered up what he had just done beautifully, as far as Marty was concerned. They went on again. That was Step 1. “I’m one up on them now,” he thought. “I knew what I’m carrying, and they still don’t know that I knew.”

They found their usual bench in the park, sat down on it.

“Step 2 will take place pretty soon. Fold your leg under you,” Marty told Dick, and jogged it with the tip of his stick; “that’ll give him away to us.”

Footsteps sounded in the distance, drew nearer, came to a halt opposite them.

“What’s that, a wooden leg your dog has?”

Marty felt like saying: “How do you know? You can’t see it from where you are.” But he didn’t. He wasn’t interested in this poor wretch, anyway. He and others like him had already been picked up long ago by Burkhardt’s squad, then turned loose again for come-ons.

“Stretch your paw out a little, doggie, so I can see it.”

“And get my bum jolts,” added Marty to himself.

He let the steps fade away in the distance, then he bent over and ran his finger under the leather cushion a second time. The little paper cube was gone now; the spongy feel of folded money was back again.

“We’re getting there,” he told the dog softly. “The preliminary stages are over with now. At dusk, when we go out of here, our job begins.”

The wheels of a little cart came creaking along the path about an hour later. Marty knew who it was; they were old friends.

“Hello, Silvestro,” he said. “I got a sweet tooth today. What you got that’s extra sticky and makes a lotta noise when you chew it?” “Popcorn dip’ in molasses, she’sa make the most noise, she’sa the worst sticky thing I got ona whole cart. You getta on your fingers, you never getta off again, issa worse than fly pape.”

“Gimme a dime’s worth of it.”

But the sweet tooth must have gone sour on him; after the little cart had trundled on, he put it all in his pocket, still wrapped up; didn’t even taste it.

When he felt the pavement under him getting cool and knew the shadows had lain over it for a long time, he got up and they started slowly back. Dick didn’t know that they weren’t going home just like any other night, Dick couldn’t tell they were up against the toughest job of both their lives. But if he had, he’d have still been there beside him, probably.

Near the park entrance Marty stopped a laborer they passed and asked him, not the exact time, but just how dark it was.

“It’s as dark as it’ll ever get tonight,” was the answer.

Marty nodded his thanks and went on. That was the way he wanted it to be. The street lights would still give his intended adversary a big advantage at that; this was as even as the odds could be made, and they were still pretty heavy against him.

Back into the built-up streets they crossed, and his heart was pounding while he trudged so serenely along beside Dick. Along here some place it would be, somewhere along the next three blocks.

It was nightfall now and people were hurrying home from their offices and jobs; they didn’t have leisure to collect around him and gape like they did earlier in the day. A glance in passing was the most they gave him. Not more than one person, as a rule, stepped up and asked him foolish questions on his way back at nights. He knew now what that meant, who that one person was, but he hadn’t until now.

They slowly coursed the first block after the park and nothing happened. The way Dick’s coat kept contact with the shank of his leg, no one could have impeded the dog for a moment without Marty’s knowing it immediately.

They crossed the intersection and began covering the second block. Marty couldn’t tell whether it was a darker stretch than the one before, and therefore more favorable to undercover purposes, or not. It sounded a little quieter, however, and therefore must have been less brightly lighted. Along they toiled, tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap, with the patter of Dick’s three normal paws and the tick of his little wooden peg for an accompaniment. Then suddenly just as they were nearing the far corner, and Marty had already checked the block off as not being the one, a single stealthy footfall fell directly beside them, as though someone had stepped out of the shelter of a doorway or nook in the building line.

A voice asked softly, “What’s that, a wooden leg he’s got, pop?”

“Yeah,” said Marty benevolently, and took a deep breath.

He brought the popcorn out of his pocket, well crumbled by now in its wrapping, started to put a little in his mouth, fumbled the package, and it spilled all over the sidewalk around him, like rice at a wedding, but much stickier than rice could ever be.

There was a crunching, gritty sound, as it was ground underfoot, became embedded in shoe leather. As the man who had been crouching down beside Dick moved inadvertently backward in straightening up, he apparently didn’t even notice that he was getting his soles full of it.

“Some contraption!” he murmured appreciatively.

His steps receded. But they couldn’t be very furtive any more. Scrunch, scrunch, scrunch, it was almost like someone walking on gravel. Marty’s ears could pick it up as easily as a microphone in a recording room.

The retreating man became conscious of it himself after a few steps. There was a scraping sound as he tried to free the soles of his shoes. But the stuff was as hard to get off entirely as chewing gum. The crunching had diminished considerably when the tread resumed, but there was still plenty of it left to be a distinguishing mark for Marty; it was a lot easier to identify than Burkhardt’s one-two-three had been last night.

Meanwhile he and Dick were advancing again in their original direction, with the gritty walk receding far ahead of them now and drawing farther away at every step. Suddenly it was blotted out entirely, and Marty knew what that meant: the man had rounded the corner.

“Hurry up before we lose him!” he whispered, and started out at a lumbering headlong run, stick folded under his arm to avoid tripping over it.

Dick loped along beside him, then swerved in and braked him abruptly, so he knew they were out at the curb line. That was too far out; all the man had to do was look back over his shoulder and he’d see them there. Marty quickly tacked back for what he judged to be a sufficient distance to be sheltered by the building line; then he shifted over closer to it and listened for all he was worth. All this of course was confusing to Dick, but he followed suit.

Yes, there it was, he could still make it out going far down the side street. Gra-ak, grick, gra-ak, grick. Very faint, though, now. “Have to close in a little or we’re going to lose it,” he said, and that was a dangerous thing to do in a straight line. He took off his glasses and pocketed them as he rounded the corner, but he knew the precaution was worse than useless; while Dick remained with him, he could be spotted a mile off. And what good was he without Dick?

For the first time the thought of failure entered his mind. Burkhardt was right, he’d never make it. Too late, Marty saw now what his mistake was. He should have brought someone else along with him, someone with eyesight. He could have accomplished what he had so far, then they could have taken it up from here on, tracked his man down, come back, and reported where he had holed up. But who could he have used? Celia? That would have subjected her to danger; and then probably Burkhardt would have freed himself in her absence, raised an alarm, and he would be in a detention cell by now. Marty cast the thought of defeat resolutely from him. The footsteps were still in range, weren’t they? Why give up yet?

Twice they faded out, and he thought he’d lost them, but each time they came back again. Still, he didn’t like the sound of that. What did it mean, that he’d stopped and looked back? Meanwhile, Marty was hustling along at a pace he’d never attempted before, and taxing Dick’s ingenuity to the utmost. Dick wasn’t used to guiding him at the double-quick like this, but the dog made a good job of it.

The steps ahead were growing a little clearer again, which meant that he was closing in on them, when suddenly what he had been dreading most all along happened. They stopped dead about three quarters of a block ahead, there was the sound of a latch being opened, and then a car door slammed closed with sickening finality.

It was over; he’d lost him. He might as well quit now. Even memorizing the license plate wouldn’t have been much good, but he couldn’t even do that. An engine started to turn with a fine silky whir, wheels slithered into motion. He might have known this would happen. Birds like that didn’t travel afoot any farther than they could avoid it; too much danger of being picked up.

There was only one slim chance left, and he tried for it. He swerved out to the gutter and started to flourish his stick wildly and bawl, “Taxi! Taxi!” This was one thing Dick couldn’t do for him, but he added his barks to the din. The departure of their quarry was drowned out in the racket.

He was luckier than many a full-sighted person has been in such an emergency. One must have been passing on the opposite side of the street just then. He heard the squeal of a U turn, and Dick nudged him back out of the way just in time to avoid having his shins barked by a running board that came coasting up.

“Yes, sir,” a cheery voice said. “Where to?” And a door was swung open for him.

He tumbled in, Dick after him with an ungainly heave.

“Did you notice a car just pulling away from the curb, on this side, on your way up just now?”

“Yeah, I can still see it from here. There’s a light holding him up two blocks down.”

Gratification almost made Marty stammer. “Keep him in sight for me, stay with him, don’t lose him!”