"Jameson, go outside in the store to the telephone booth and call up
headquarters. Ask them if the automobile is ready, with the men in
it."
I rang up, and after a moment the police central answered that
everything was right.
"Then tell central to hold the line clear--we mustn't lose a moment.
Jameson, you stay in the booth. Vincenzo, you pretend to be working
around your window, but not in such a way as to attract attention, for
they have men watching the street very carefully. What is it, Luigi?"
"Gennaro is coming. I just heard one of them say, 'Here he comes.'"
Even from the booth I could hear the dictograph repeating the
conversation in the dingy little back room of Albano's, down the
street.
"He's ordering a bottle of red wine," murmured Luigi, dancing up and
down with excitement.
Vincenzo was so nervous that he knocked a bottle down in the window,
and I believe that my heart-beats were almost audible over the
telephone which I was holding, for the police operator called me down
for asking so many times if all was ready.
"There it is--the signal," cried Craig. "'A fine opera is "I
Pagliacci."' Now listen for the answer."
A moment elapsed, then, "Not without Gennaro," came a gruff voice in
Italian from the dictograph.
A silence ensued. It was tense.
"Wait, wait," said a voice which I recognized instantly as Gennaro's.
"I cannot read this. What is this 23-1/2 Prince Street?"
"No, 33-1/2. She has been left in the back yard," answered the voice.
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