"Give me a dozen of those roses there." She sold flowers also.
"The pink ones. How much?" he asked.
"Two-fifty."
He laid down the money. "Never mind the box. They are for you.
Good evening."
The girl stared at the flowers as Ali Baba must have stared at the cask with rubies.
"For me!" she whispered. "For nothing!"
Her eyes blurred. She never saw Hawksley again; but that was of no importance. She had a gentle deed to put away in the lavender of recollection.
Outside Hawksley could see nothing of the man who had bought the cigars. At any rate, further dodging would be useless. He would go directly to his destination. Old Gregor had sent him a duplicate key to the apartment. He could hide there for a day or two; then visit Rathbone's banker at his residence in the night to establish his identity. Gregor could be trusted to carry the wallet and the pouch to the bank. Once these were walled in steel half the battle would be over. He would have nothing to guard thereafter but his life. He laughed brokenly. Nothing but the clothes he stood in.
He never could claim the belongings he had been forced to leave in that hotel back yonder. But there was loyal old Gregor. Somebody would be honestly glad to see him. The poor old chap! Astonishing, but of late he was always thinking in English.
He hailed the first free taxicab he saw, climbed in, and was driven downtown. He looked back constantly. Was he followed? There was no way of telling. The street was alive with vehicles tearing north and south, with frequent stoppage for the passage of those racing east and west. The destination of Hawksley's cab was an old-fashioned apartment house in Eightieth Street.
Gregor would have a meal ready; and it struck Hawksley forcibly that he was hungry, that he had not touched food since the night before. Gregor, valeting in a hotel, pressing coats and trousers and sewing on buttons! Groggy old world, wasn't it? Gregor, pressing the trousers of the hoi polloi! Gregor, who could have sent New York mad with that old Stradivarius of his! But Gregor was wise. Safety for him lay in obscurity; and what was more obscure than a hotel valet?
He did not seek the elevator but mounted the first flight of stairs.
He saw two doors, one on each side of the landing. He sought one, stooped and peered at the card over the bell. Conover. Gregor's was opposite. Having a key he did not knock but unlocked the door and stepped into the dark hall.
"Stefani Gregor?" he called, joyously. "Stefani, my old friend, it is I!"
Silence. But that was understandable. Either Gregor had not returned from his labours or he was out gathering the essentials for the evening meal. Judging from the variety of odours that swam the halls of this human warren many suppers were in the process of making, and the top flavour was garlic. He sniffed pleasurably.
Not that the smell of garlic quickened his hunger. It merely sent his thought galloping backward a score of years. He saw Stefani Gregor and a small boy in mountain costume footing it sturdily along the dizzy goat paths of the rugged hills; saw the two sitting on some ruddy promontory and munching black bread rubbed with garlic.
Ambrosia! His mother's horror, when she smelt his breath - as if garlic had not been one of her birthrights! His uncle, roaring out in his bull's voice that black bread and garlic were good for little boys' stomachs, and made the stuff of soldiers. Black bread and garlic and the Golden Age!
