and he had left it there. And now here he was up on
the seventeenth floor of the Bellhaven Hotel and the fawn-coloured coat
with the luck piece in one of its pockets dangled on a hook in the cloak
booth of the Clarenden cafe, less than a block away from the spot where
he had shot Sonntag.

He marvelled that without his talisman he had escaped arrest up to now;
it was inconceivable that he had won his way thus far. But then the
answer to that was, of course, that he had retained the pasteboard
square that stood for possession of the coat itself. He gave thanks to
the unclean spirits of his superstition that apprehension of his loss
had come to him before he destroyed the slip. Had he gone ahead and torn
it up he would now count himself as doomed. But he hadn't torn it up.
There it lay on the white coverlet of the bed.

He must make a try to recover his luck piece; no other course occurred
to him. Trying would be beset with hazards, accumulated and thickening.
He must venture back into the dangerous territory; must dare deadfalls
and pitfalls; must run the chance of possible traps and probable nets.
By now the police might have definitely ascertained who it was that
killed Sonntag; or lacking the name of the slayer they might have
secured a reasonably complete description of him; might have spread the
general alarm for a man of such and such a height and such and such a
weight, with such a nose and such eyes and such hair and all the rest of
it. It might be that the Clarenden was being watched, along with the
other public resorts in the immediate vicinity of where the homicide had
been committed. It might even be that back in the Clarenden he would
encounter the real Parker face to face. Suppose Parker had finished his
supper and had discovered his loss--losses rather--and had made a
complaint to the management; and suppose as a result of Parker's
indignation that members of the uniformed force had been called in to
adjudicate the wrangle; suppose through sheer coincidence Parker should
see Trencher and should recognise the garments that Trencher wore as his
own. Suppose any one of a half dozen things. Nevertheless, he meant to
go back. He would take certain precautions--for all the need of haste,
he must take them--but he would go back.

He put the pink check into his waistcoat pocket, switched out the room
light, locked the door of the room on the outside, took the key with him
and went down in an elevator, taking ca