The risk comes from the police, and from some of my old friends and the gangsters they have enlisted.

So long as they believe me in New York, they'll all be on the lookout for me every moment.

If they believed me out of New York, they would all discontinue their vigilance.
If--if--But perhaps you would not care to do so much." "Go on." "Would you be willing to write a letter to some friend in Chicago, requesting the friend to post an enclosed letter written by me ?" "Certainly." "My handwriting would be disguised--but a person who really knows my writing would penetrate the attempted disguise and recognize it as mine.
My letter would be addressed to my grandmother requesting her to express my recent purchase of forfeited pledges to me in Chicago.

A clever person reading the letter would be certain I was asking her to send me my clothes." "What's the point to that ?" "One detail of the police's search for me will be to open secretly, with the aid of the postal authorities, all mail addressed to my grandmother.
They will steam open this letter about my clothes, then seal it and let it be delivered.

But they will have learned that I have escaped them and am in Chicago.