Gottlieb suffered this course of conduct to become a habit and then informed me that he proposed to collect the full amount of Mademoiselle Carrell's judgment upon the following Monday. I expressed some incredulity at the idea, but later events proved that my partner was well justified in his prophecy. We had long before procured a warrant for Brown's arrest and the only difficulty lay in executing it upon a week-day. Sunday came and as usual Brother Brown, with his customary bravado, made his appearance in the city. That evening Gottlieb invited me to dine with him at the resort ordinarily frequented by our quarry. True to his invariable custom, Brown turned up there with a party of his cronies and spent the evening in merry feasting, presumably upon the money of our client. It was a clear, moonlight night and when the glowworm showed the matin to be near--or, more correctly, when it neared twelve o'clock-- Brown beckoned to the waiter, paid his bill out of a fat roll of greenbacks, winked good-naturedly at us, and bade his friends good- night. A moment or two later Gottlieb whispered to me to follow him and we stepped forth upon the street. Brown was strolling quietly down Broadway toward Twenty-third Street. A short distance behind followed a thick-set man with a square-cut jaw whom I had frequently noticed in Gottlieb's office.
On the corner of the cross-town thoroughfare Brown paused, looked first at the moon and then at his watch, and proceeded on his constitutional toward the ferry. The street, save for a distant and presumably somnolent policeman, was deserted. The thick-set man crossed to the other side of the way, quickened his steps, overtook and passed Brown, recrossed and sauntered toward him. A moment later there was a collision between them, voices were raised in angry altercation and presently Brown was rolling undignifiedly on the pavement, his calls for the police rending the stillness of the night. The officer hastily approached, whistling wildly for aid. Gottlieb and I took refuge in an adjacent doorway. Abruptly, however, Brown's outcries ceased. It is probably that a sudden vision of the consequences of an appeal to police protection came to him as he lay like an overturned June-bug upon the sidewalk. But the law had been invoked. The car of Juggernaut had started upon its course.