To confirm it he went directly to the telephone girl and inquired of her, and the obliging young woman repeated to him the whole of her conversation with Zizi.
“H’m,” Pollard observed to himself, “h’m—exactly so.”
And he turned on his heel and went out again.
Absorbed in his thoughts, he paid no attention to a slim little figure that slipped out from a protecting doorway and followed him. Nor did he notice that the determined little person kept on following him as he boarded a Fifth Avenue Bus and went southward.
Zizi, who could make herself as inconspicuous as a schoolgirl when she chose, sat in the rear seat, looking out of the window.
Pollard got out at the Washington Square terminus, and walked briskly westward. This was away from the Gleason apartments, though Zizi had not expected him to go there.
She followed, unnoticed, until Pollard entered what seemed to be a second-rate boarding house.
Nodding her head contentedly, Zizi waited until her quarry again made an appearance.
Then as the man went over and took a North-bound Bus, Zizi found a taxicab and gave the order to fly back to Penny Wise.
It was after fifteen or twenty minutes of the excited girl’s conversation and explanations that Wise was in possession of all the facts.
“Can we get him?” he asked, and then the telephone rang.
“Hello,” said Wise, and received this astonishing response.
“Manning Pollard speaking. You have been too many for me, Mr Wise. I give myself up. I don’t know how you discovered so much, but I see there’s no use in further effort to hide my crime. I confess, and you may come and take me. I am in my rooms at the hotel.”
“You are a bit astonishing, Mr Pollard,” Wise said. “But I accept your invitation and I will go at once to you. Will you stay there till I come.”
“Certainly. When I perceive the game is up, what else is there for me to do? Moreover, would I call you up and surrender, if I were not sincere about it?”
“I can’t see why you should. At your hotel, then? All right.”
“Heavens, Zizi, what a man! I’ll start right off. You call Prescott, and tell him just what Pollard said, and tell him to go to the hotel with two policemen—or enough to take the prisoner.”
Wise went and Zizi did as he had bade her.
