The landlord shook his head. "Nothing like that. I'd have noticed if there was."
So Tom-Tom, who had gone home with old Bratton, had vanished.
Gascon left the lodgings and made a call at a newspaper office, where he inserted a personal notice among the classified advertisements:
T-T. I have you figured out. Clever, but your old partner can add two and two and get four. Better let S.C. go. B.F.G.
The notice ran for three days. Then a reply, in the same column:
It was bleak, brief defiance, but Gascon felt a sudden blaze of triumph. Somehow he had made a right guess, on a most fantastic proposition. Tom-Tom had come to life as a lawless menace. All that he, Gascon, need do, was act accordingly. He made plans, then inserted another message:
T-T. I made you, and I can break you. This is between us. Get in touch with me, or I'll come looking for you. You won't like that. B.F.G.
Next day his telephone rang. A hoarse voice called him by name:
"Look, Gascon, you better lay off if you know what's good for you."
"Ah," replied Gascon gently, "Tom-Tom seems to have taken up conventional gangster methods. It means that he's afraid--which I'm not. Tell him I'm not laying off, I'm laying on."
That night he took dinner at a restaurant on a side street. As he left it, two men sauntered out of a doorway and came up on either side of him. One was as squat and bulky as a wrestler, with a truculent square face. The other, taller but scrawny, had a broad brow and a narrow chin, presenting the facial triangle which phrenologists claim denotes shrewdness. Both had their hands inside their coats, where bulges betrayed the presence of holstered guns.
"This is a stickup," said Triangle-Face. "Don't make a move or a peep, or we'll cut down on you."
"I'm not moving or peeping," Gascon assured them blandly, "but where are you taking me?"
"Into this car," replied the triangle-faced one, and opened the rear door of a parked sedan. Gascon got in, with the powerful gunman beside him. The other got into the front seat and took the wheel.
"No funny business," he cautioned as he trod on the starter. "The boss wants to talk to you."
The car drew away from the curb, heading across town. Gascon produced his cigarette case--Shannon Cole had given it to him on his last birthday--opened it, and offered it to the man beside him. Smiling urbanely at the curt growl of refusal, he then selected a cigarette and lighted it.