Page:The Intrusion of Jimmy.djvu/87

Rh of the Lusitania, he had reached Fifty-Ninth Street, that he realized how he had also lost her. It suddenly came home to him that not only did he not know her address, but he was ignorant of her name. Spike had called the man with the revolver "boss" throughout—only that and nothing more. Except that he was a police-captain, Jimmy knew as little about the man as he had before their meeting. And Spike, who held the key to the mystery, had vanished. His acquaintances of that night had passed out of his life like figures in a waking dream. As far as the big man with the pistol was concerned, this did not distress him. He had known that massive person only for about a quarter of an hour, but to his thinking that was ample. Spike he would have liked to meet again, but he bore the separation with much fortitude. There remained the girl of the ship; and she had haunted him with unfailing persistence during every one of the three hundred and eighty-four days that had passed since their meeting.

It was the thought of her that had made New York seem cramped. For weeks, Jimmy had patrolled the likely streets, the Park, and Riverside Drive, in the hope of meeting her. He had gone to the theaters and restaurants, but with no success. Sometimes, he had wandered through the Bowery, on the chance of meeting Spike. He had seen red heads in profusion, but never again that of his young disciple in the art of burglary. In the end, he had wearied of the