already. For the first time a sense of security
exhilarated him. Almost it was a sense of exultation.

He descended the steps and went straight to the nearest of the rank of
parked taxicabs. Its driver was nowhere in sight. A carriage starter for
the cafe, in gorgeous livery, understood without being told what the
tall muffled-up gentleman desired and blew a shrill blast on a whistle.
At that the truant driver appeared, coming at a trot from down the
street.

"'Scuse me, mister," he said as he mounted to his seat at the wheel.
"Been a shootin' down the street. Guy got croaked, they say, and they
can't find the guy that croaked um."

"Never mind the shooting," said Trencher as he climbed into the cab,
whose door the starter had opened for him.

"Where to, gent?"

"Harty's Palm Garden," said Trencher, naming a restaurant a mile and a
half away, straight up Broadway. His main thought now was to get
entirely out of this part of town.

Riding along uptown Trencher explored the pockets of the pilfered
overcoat. The search produced a pair of heavy gloves, a wadded
handkerchief, two cigars, a box of matches, and, last of all, a
triangular brass token inscribed with a number and a firm name. Without
the imprint of the name Trencher would have recognised it, from its
shape alone. It had come from the check room in the upper-tier waiting
room of the Grand Central Station. Discovery of it gave him a new
idea--an idea involving no added risk but having in it added
possibilities for insuring the ultimate success of his get-away. In any
event there could be neither harm nor enhanced danger in putting it into
execution.

Therefore, when he had emerged from the cab at Harty's and had paid the
fare and had seen the driver swing his vehicle about and start off back
downtown, he walked across Columbus Circle to the west curve of it,
climbed into another taxicab and was driven by way of Fifty-ninth Street
and Fifth Avenue to the Grand Central. Here at the establishment of the
luggage-checking concessionaire on the upper level of the big terminal
he tendered the brass token to a drowsy-eyed attendant, receiving in
exchange a brown-leather suit case with letters stenciled on one end of
it, like this:

M. K. P.
STAMFORD, CONN.

Waving aside a red-capped negro porter, Trencher, carrying the spoil of
his latest coup, departed via one of the Vanderbilt Avenue exits.
Diagonally across the avenue was a small drug store