When the proper time arrived, Jim Farland would tell Miss Kate Gilbert that he knew she had written the anonymous notes to Sidney Prale--or that her maid had--and he would ask her why.
He reached Columbus Circle, made his way over to Fifth Avenue, and continued his walk down that broad thoroughfare. Farland had decided to go to the hotel and have a talk with Sidney Prale and Murk. He told himself that he was going to like Murk, the human hulk who suddenly had become of some use in the world.
But he did not get a chance to go to the hotel just then. He came to a busy corner, and stopped to wait for a chance to cross the street congested with traffic. Suddenly, a few feet to his right, he saw Kate Gilbert, who had left her apartment only a short time before.
There was nothing startling in that fact alone, for this was a district where there were fashionable shops and beauty parlors, and well-dressed women were on every side.
What interested Detective Jim Farland the most was that Kate Gilbert was standing before the show window of a fashionable shop in intimate conversation with George Lerton, Sidney Prale's cousin!
Farland started moving slowly toward them, making his way through the crowd in such fashion that he did not attract too much attention to himself. He was feeling a sudden interest in this case. There were great possibilities in the fact that two persons connected with it from different angles were in conversation.
As he made his way toward the show window, he remembered how this George Lerton had tried to induce Sidney Prale to leave the city and remain away, and how, afterward, he had denied that he had seen Prale on Fifth Avenue and had spoken to him.
"He's connected with this thing in some way," Farland told himself. "It's my job to discover exactly how."
But he was doomed to be disappointed. Before he could get near enough to make an attempt to overhear what they were saying, they suddenly parted. Kate Gilbert went into the shop, and George Lerton crossed the street and hurried down the Avenue.
It was no use wasting time on Kate Gilbert. Farland knew where to find her if he wanted her, and he knew there would be no use in shadowing her now, since she probably had gone into the shop to purchase a hat. But George Lerton was quite another matter.