Deliberately had he permitted himself to be duped, circumvented, over-reached. He had held in his hand a tangible clue to that mystery which had so perplexed him—and had allowed it to be filched away before he could recognise it and shape his course accordingly.

Why had he never for an instant dreamed that the term "two-thirty" could indicate anything but the hour of some otherwise undesignated appointment? Of course it had signified the number of Marian's carriage-check, "230": two hundred and thirty, rolling off the modern tongue, stripped to essentials—thanks to the telephone's abbreviated influence—as, simply, "two-thirty"!

And he had held that check in his hand, had memorised its number and repeated it to Marian, had heard it bawled by the carriage porter, had shouted it himself in reply: never for an instant thinking to connect it with the elder Shaynon's parting admonition to the gang leader!

If he had ere this entertained any doubts whatever of the ugly grounds for his fears they were now resolved by recognition of Bayard's clumsy ruse to keep him both out of the cab and out of the way, while November and his lieutenants executed their infamous commission....

And all that was now ten—fifteen—twenty minutes old! Marian's car was gone; and if it had not reached the Plaza, the girl was lost, irrevocably lost to the frantic little man with the twinkling red heels and scarlet breeches, sprinting so wildly down Fifth Avenue in the dank, weird dusk that ran before the dawn of that April morning.

Fortunately he hadn't far to run; else he would certainly have been waylaid or overhauled by some policeman of enquiring turn of mind, anxious (in the way of duty) to learn his reason for such extraordinary haste.

As it was, P. Sybarite managed to make his goal in record time without attracting the attention of more than half a dozen wayfarers; all of whom gave him way and went their own with that complete indifference so distinctly Manhattanesque....

He had emerged from the restaurant building to find the street bare of any sort of hirable conveyance and himself in a fret too exacting to consider walking to the Plaza or taking a street-car thither. Nothing less than a taxicab—and that, one with a speed-mad chauffeur—would satisfy his impatient humour.

And indeed, if there were a grain of truth in his suspicions, formless though in a measure they remained, he had not an instant to lose.

But on the way to the Bizarre from Peter Kenny's rooms, some freak of a mind superficially preoccupied had caused him to remark, on the south side of Forty-third Street, immediately east of Sixth Avenue, a long rank of buildings which an utilitarian age had humbled from their once proud estate of private stables to the lowlier degree of quarters for motor vehicles both public and private.

Of these one building boasted the blazing electric announcement: "ALL NIGHT GARAGE."

Into this last P. Sybarite pelted at the top of his speed and pulled up puffing, to stare nervously round a place gloomy, cavernous, and pungent with fragrance of oil, rubber, and gasoline. Here and there lonely electric bulbs made visible somnolent ranks of motor-cars. Out of the shadows behind him, presently, came a voice drawling:

"You certainly do take on like you'd lost a power of trouble."

P. Sybarite whirled round as if stung. The speaker occupied a chair tilted back against the wall, his feet on the rungs, a cigarette smouldering between his lips in open contempt of the regulations of the Fire Department and all other admonitions of ordinary common-sense.

"What can I do for you?" he resumed, nothing about him stirring save eyes that twinkled as they travelled from head to foot of the odd and striking figure P. Sybarite presented as Beelzebub, Knight Errant.

"Taxi!" the little man panted vociferously.

The other yawned and stretched. "It can't be done," he admitted fairly. "They ain't no such animal on the premises."

With a gesture P. Sybarite singled out the nearest car.

"What's that?" he demanded angrily.

Shading his eyes, the man examined it with growing wonder which presently found expression: "As I live, it's an autymobeel!"

"Damn your sense of humour!" stormed P. Sybarite. "What's the matter with that car?"

"As man to man—nothing."

"Why can't I have it?"

"Ten dollars an hour—"

"I'll take it."

"But you asked for a taxi," grumbled the man, rising to press a button. Whereupon a bell shrilled somewhere in the dark backwards of the establishment. "Deposit...?" he suggested, turning back.

P. Sybarite disbursed a golden double-eagle; and to the operator who, roused by the bell, presently drifted out of the shadows, gaping and rubbing his eyes, he promised a liberal tip for haste.

In two minutes he was rolling out of the garage, ensconced in the body of a luxurious and high-powered touring machine which he strongly suspected to be somebody's private car lawlessly farmed out while its owner slept.

The twilight was now stronger, if still dull and as cold as the air it coloured, rendering P. Sybarite grateful for Peter Kenny's inverness as the car surged spiritedly up the deserted avenue, its disdain for speed regulations ignored by the string of yawning peg-post cops—almost the only human beings in sight.

Town was indeed deep sunk in lethargy at that small hour; the traditional milk-wagon itself seemed to have been caught napping. With one consent residence and shop and sky-scraping hotel blinked apathetically at the flying car; then once more turned and slept. Even the Bizarre had forgotten P. Sybarite—showed at least no sign of recognition as he scurried past.

A curious sense of illusion troubled the little man. The glamour of the night was gone and with it all that had lent semblance of plausibility to his incredible career; daylight forced all back into confused and distorted perspective, like the pageant of some fantastic and disordered dream uncertainly recalled long hours after waking.

As for himself, in his absurd attire and bound upon his ambiguous errand, he was all out of the picture—horribly suggestive of an addled sparrow who had stayed up all night on purpose to cheat some legitimately early bird out of a chimerical first worm....

Self-conscious and ill at ease, he presented himself to the amused inspection of the night force in the office of the Plaza, made his halting enquiry, and received the discounted assurance that Miss Blessington, though a known and valued patron of the house, was not then its guest.

Convinced, as he had been from the moment that the words "two-thirty," falling from the lips of the Bizarre's house detective, had made him alive to his terrible oversight, that this would be the outcome at the Plaza, he turned away, sobered, outwitted, and miserably at a loss to guess what next to do.

Gloomily he paused with a hand on the open door of his car, thoughts profoundly disturbed and unsettled, for so long that the operator grew restless.

"Where next, sir?" he asked.

"Wait," said P. Sybarite in a manner of abstraction that did him no injustice; and entering the car, mechanically shut the door and sat down, permitting his gaze to range absently among the dusky distances of Central Park; where through the netted, leafless branches, the lamps that march the winding pathways glimmered like a hundred tiny moons of gold lost in some vast purple well....

Should he appeal to the police? His solicitude for the girl forbade him such recourse save as a last resort. Publicity must be avoided until the time when, all else having failed, it alone held out some little promise of assistance.

But—adrift and blind upon uncharted seas of uncertainty!—what to do?

Suddenly it became plain to him that if in truth it was with her as he feared, at least two persons knew what had become of the girl—two persons aside from himself and her hired kidnappers: Brian Shaynon and Bayard, his son.

From them alone authoritative information might be extracted, by ruse or wile or downright intimidation, eked out with effrontery, a stout heart, and perhaps a little luck.

A baleful light informing his eyes, an ominous expression settling about his mouth, he gave the operator the address of Shaynon's town-house; and as the car slipped away from the hotel was sensible of keen regret that he had left at Peter Kenny's, what time he changed his clothing, the pistol given him by Mrs. Jefferson Inche, together with the greater part of his fortuitous fortune—neither firearms nor large amounts of money seeming polite additions to one's costume for a dance....

In five minutes the car drew up in front of one of those few old-fashioned, brownstone, English-basement residences which to-day survive on Fifth Avenue below Fifty-ninth Street, elbowed, shouldered, and frowned down upon by beetling hives of trade.

At all of its wide, old-style windows, ruffled shades of straw-coloured silk were drawn. One sign alone held out any promise that all within were not deep in slumber: the outer front doors were not closed. Upon the frosted glass panels of the inner doors a dim light cast a sickly yellow stain.

Laying hold of an obsolete bell-pull, P. Sybarite yanked it with a spirit in tune with his temper. Immediately, and considerably to his surprise, the doors were thrown open and on the threshold a butler showed him a face of age, grey with the strain of a sleepless night, and drawn and set with bleary eyes.

"Mr. Shaynon?" the little man demanded sharply.

"W'ich Mr. Shaynon, sir?" enquired the butler, too weary to betray surprise—did he feel any—at this ill-timed call.

"Either—I don't care which."

"Mr. Bayard Shaynon 'as just left—not five minutes ago, sir."

"Left for where?"

"His apartments, I presume, sir."

"Then I'll see Mr. Brian Shaynon."

The butler's body filled the doorway. Nor did he offer to budge.

"I'm afraid, sir, Mr. Shaynon is 'ardly likely to see any one at this hour."

"He'll see me," replied P. Sybarite grimly. "He hasn't gone to bed, I gather?"

"Not yet, sir; but 'e's goin' immediate'."

"Very well. You may as well let me in."

Suspicious but impressed, the servant shuffled aside, and P. Sybarite brushed past him into the hallway.

"Where is he?"

"If you'll give me your nime, sir, I'll tell him you're 'ere."

P. Sybarite hesitated. He was in anything but the mood for joking, yet a certain dour humour in the jest caught his fancy and persuaded him against his better judgment.

"Nemesis," he said briefly.

"Mr.—name—what? Beg pardon, sir!"

"Nem-e-sis," P. Sybarite articulated distinctly. "And don't Mister it. He'll understand."

"Thenk you," muttered the servant blankly; and turned.

"If he doesn't—tell him it's the gentleman who was not masked at the Bizarre to-night."

"Very good, sir."

The man moved off toward the foot of a broad, shallow staircase at the back of the hall.

On impulse, P. Sybarite strode after him.

"On second thoughts, you needn't announce me. I'll go up with you."

"I'm afraid I can't permit that, sir," observed the butler, horrified.

"Afraid you'll have to."

And P. Sybarite would have pushed past, but the man with a quick and frightened movement of agility uncommon in one of his age and bulk put himself in the way.

"Please, sir!" he begged. "If I was to permit that, sir, it might cost me my position."

"Well—"

P. Sybarite drew back, relenting.

But at this juncture, from a point directly over their heads, the voice of Brian Shaynon himself interrupted them.

"Who is that, Soames?" he called impatiently, without making himself immediately visible. "Has Mr. Bayard returned?"

"No, sir," the butler called, distressed. "It's—it's a person, sir—insists on seein' you—says 'is nime's Nemmysis."

"What!"

"He has it right—Nemesis," P. Sybarite replied incisively. "And you may as well see me now, whether you want to or not. Sooner or later you'll have to!"

There was a sound of heavy, dragging footsteps on the upper landing, and Brian Shaynon showed himself at the head of the stairs; now without his furred great-coat, but still in the evening dress of elderly Respectability—Respectability sadly rumpled and maltreated, the white shield of his bosom no longer lustrous and immaculate, his tie twisted wildly beneath one ear, his collar unbuttoned, as though wrenched from its fastenings in a moment of fury. These things apart, he had within the hour aged ten years in the flesh: gone the proud flush of his bewhiskered gills, in its place leaden pallor; and gone the quick, choleric fire from eyes now smouldering, dull and all but lifeless....

He stood peering down, with an obvious lack of recognition that hinted at failing sight.

"I don't seem to know you," he said slowly, with a weary shake of his head; "and it's most inopportune—the hour. I fear you must excuse me."

"That can't be," P. Sybarite returned. "I've business with you—important. Perhaps you didn't catch the name I gave your butler—Nemesis."

"Nemesis?" Shaynon repeated vacantly. He staggered and descended a step before a groping hand checked him on the baluster-rail. "Nemesis! Is this an untimely joke of some sort, sir?"

His accents quavered querulously; and P. Sybarite with a flash of scorn put his unnatural condition down to drink.

"Far from it," he retorted ruthlessly. "The cat's out, my friend—your bag lean and flapping emptiness! What," he demanded sternly—"what have you done with Marian Blessington?"

"Mar—Marian?" the old voice iterated. "Why, she"—the man pulled himself together with a determined effort—"she's in her room, of course. Where should she be?"

"Is that true?" P. Sybarite demanded of the butler in a manner so peremptory that the truth slipped out before the fellow realised it.

"Miss Marian 'asn't returned as yet from the ball," he whispered. "'E—'e's not quite 'imself, sir. 'E's 'ad a bit of a shock, as one might s'y. I'd go easy on 'im, if you'll take a word from me."

But P. Sybarite traversed his advice without an instant's consideration.

"Brian Shaynon," he called, "you lie! The police have caught Red November; they'll worm the truth out of him within twenty minutes, if I don't get it from you now. The game's up. Come! What have you done with the girl?"

For all answer, a low cry, like the plaint of a broken-hearted child, issued from the leaden, writhen lips of the old man.

And while he stared in wonder, Brian Shaynon seemed suddenly to lose the strength of his limbs. His legs shook beneath him as with a palsy; and then, knees buckling, he tottered and plunged headlong from top to bottom of the staircase.



XX

NOVEMBER

"E's gone," the butler announced.

Kneeling beside the inert body of Brian Shaynon, where it had lodged on a broad, low landing three steps from the foot of the staircase, he turned up to P. Sybarite fishy, unemotional eyes in a pasty fat face.

The little man said nothing.

Resting a hand on the newel-post, he looked down unmoved upon the mortal wreck of him who had been his life's bane. Brian Shaynon lay in death without majesty; a crumpled and dishevelled ruin of flesh and clothing, its very insentience suggesting to the morbid fancy of the little Irishman something foul and obscene. Brian Shaynon living had been to him a sight less intolerable....

"Dead," the butler affirmed, releasing the pulseless leaden wrist, and rising. "I presume I'd best call 'is doctor, 'adn't I, sir?"

P. Sybarite nodded indifferently. Profound thought enwrapped him like a mantle.

The butler lingered, the seals of professional reticence broken by this strange and awful accident. But there was no real emotion in his temper—only curiosity, self-interest, the impulse of loquacity.

"Stroke," he observed thoughtfully, fingering his pendulous jowls and staring; "that's w'at it was—a stroke, like. He'd 'ad a bit of shock before you come in, sir."

"Yes?" murmured P. Sybarite absently.

"Yes, sir; a bit of a shock, owin' to 'is 'avin' quarrelled with Mr. Bayard, sir."

"Oh!" P. Sybarite roused. "Quarrelled with his son, you say?"

"Yes, sir; somethin' dreadful they was goin' on. 'E couldn't 'ave got over it when you come. Mr. Bayard 'adn't been gone, not more than five minutes, sir."

P. Sybarite interrogated with his eyes alone.

"It was a bit odd, come to think of it—the 'ole affair, sir. Must 'ave been over an hour ago, Mr. Shaynon 'ere, 'e come 'ome alone from the dance—I see you must've been there yourself, sir, if I m'y mike so bold as to tike notice of your costume. Very fawncy it is, too, sir—becomes your style 'andsome, it does, sir."

"Never mind me. What happened when Mr. Shaynon came home?"

"W'y, 'e 'adn't more than got inside the 'ouse, sir, w'en a lidy called on 'im—a lidy as I 'ad never set eyes on before, sime as in your caise, sir; although I wouldn't 'ave you think I mean she was of your clawss, sir. 'Ardly. Properly speakin', she wasn't a lidy at all—but a woman. I mean to s'y, a bit flash."

"I understand you. Go on."

"Well, sir, I didn't 'ave a chance to over'ear w'at 'er business were, but it seemed to work on Mr. Brian there somethin' 'orrid. They was closeted in the library upstairs not more than twenty minutes, and then she went, and 'e rung for me and to bring 'im brandy and not delay about it. 'E nearly emptied the decanter, too, before Mr. Bayard got 'ere. And the minute they come together, it was 'ammer-and-tongs. 'Ot and 'eavy they 'ad it for upwards of an hour, be'ind closed doors, sime as like with the lidy. But w'en Mr. Bayard, 'e come to go, sir, the old gent follows 'im to the landin'—just where 'e was when he spoke to you, sir, before 'e 'ad the stroke—and 'e says to 'im, says 'e: 'Remember, I cawst you off. Don't come to me for nothin' after this. Don't ever you darken my doorstep ag'in,' 'e says. And Mr. Bayard, sir, 'e ups and laughs fiendish in 'is own father's fice. 'You've got another guess comin',' he mocks 'im open': 'you're in this business as deep as me,' 'e says, 'and if you cross me, I'll double-cross you, s'elp me Gawd, and in the newspapers, too.' And with that, out 'e went in a rige."

"So that was the way of it!" P. Sybarite commented dully.

So Mrs. Inche had sought the father to revenge herself upon the son; and with this outcome—Bayard unharmed, his father dead!...

"That was hexactly 'ow it 'appened, sir," affirmed the butler, rubbing his fat old hands.

"You 're wasting time. Go telephone the doctor," said P. Sybarite suddenly.

"Right you are, sir. But there's no real 'urry. He's dead as Guy Fawkes, and no doctor livin'—"

"Nevertheless, telephone—if you don't want to get into trouble."

"Quite right, sir. I'll do so at once."

Turning, the man waddled off, disappearing toward the back of the house.

Alone, with neither hesitation nor a single backward glance at the body of his ancient enemy, the little man swung about, walked quietly to the front door, and as quietly let himself out.

He was of no mind to be called as a witness at a possible inquest; and business of far greater import urged him, the real business of his life, this: to discover the whereabouts of Marian Blessington with the least avoidable delay.

His first cast having failed, he must now try to draw the son; and, if possible, before the latter learned of his father's death.

Not until about to re-enter the car did he remember he had neglected to secure Bayard's address from the butler. But he wouldn't turn back; it could be ascertained elsewhere; Peter Kenny would either know it or know where to get it.

To Peter's rooms he must of necessity return first of all; for it would not much longer prove possible to go up and down and to and fro upon Manhattan Island in a black silk dress-coat and flaming scarlet small-clothes; to change was imperative.

"The Monastery," he directed, settling back into his seat.

It was now clear daylight: a morning of bright promise breaking over a Town much livelier than it had been half an hour or so ago, with more citizens abroad, some striding briskly to the day's work, some trudging wearily from the night's.

Over all brooded still that effect of illusion: this might have been, almost, a foreign city into whose streets he was adventuring for the first time, so changed and strange seemed everything in his eyes.

P. Sybarite himself felt old and worn and tired, and with a thoughtful finger rubbed an over-night growth of stubble upon his chin....

"Wait," he told the driver, on alighting at the Monastery; "I'm keeping you."

Money passed between them—more than enough to render his wishes inviolable.

A dull-eyed hallboy recognised and let him in, sullenly passing him on to the elevator; but as that last was on the point of taking flight to Peter Kenny's door, it hesitated; and the operator, with his hand on the half-closed gate, shot it open again instead of shut.

A Western Union messenger-boy, not over forty years tired, was being admitted at the street door. The colloquy there was distinctly audible:

"Mr. Bayard Shaynon?"

"'Leventh floor. Hurry up—don't keep the elevator waitin'."

"Ah—ferget it!"

Whistling softly, the man with the yellow envelope ambled nonchalantly into the cage; fixed the operator with a truculent stare, and demanded the eleventh floor.

Now Peter Kenny's rooms were on the twelfth....

The telegram with its sprawling endorsement in ink, "Mr. Bayard Shaynon, Monastery Apartments," was for several moments within two feet of P. Sybarite's nose.

It was, indeed, anything but easy to keep from pouncing upon that wretched messenger, ravishing him of the envelope (which he was now employing artfully to split a whistle into two equal portions—and favour to none), and making off with it before the gate of the elevator could close.

Impossible to conjecture what intimate connection it might not have with the disappearance of Marian Blessington, what a flood of light it might not loose upon that dark intrigue!

Indeed, the speculations this circumstance set awhirl in P. Sybarite's weary head were so many and absorbing that he forgot altogether to be surprised or gratified by the favour of Kismet which had caused their paths to cross at precisely that instant, as if solely that he might be informed of Bayard Shaynon's abode....

"What door?" demanded Western Union as he left the cage at the eleventh floor.

"Right across the hall."

The gate clanged, the cage mounted to the next floor, and P. Sybarite got out, requiring no direction: for Peter Kenny's door was immediately above Bayard Shaynon's.

As he touched the bell-button for the benefit of the elevator man—but for his own, failed to press it home—the grumble of the door-bell below could be heard faintly through muffling fire-brick walls.

The grumble persisted long after the elevator had dropped back to the eleventh floor.

And presently the voice of Western Union was lifted in sour expostulation:

"Sa-ay, whatcha s'pose 's th' matta wid dis guy? I' been ringin' haffanour!"

"That's funny," commented the elevator boy: "he came in only about ten minutes ago."

"Yuh wuddn' think he cud pass away 's quick 's all that—wuddja?"

"Ah, I dunno. Mebbe he had a bun on when he come in. Gen'ly has. I didn' notice."

"Well, th' way he must be poundin' his ear now—notta hear dis racket—yud think he was trainin' for a Rip van Winkle Marathon."

Pause—made audible by the pertinacious bell, grinding away like a dentist's drill in a vacant tooth....

"Waitin' here all day won't get me nothin'. Here, what's th' matta wid you signin' for't?"

"G'wan. Sign it yourself 'nd stick unda the door, whydoncha?"

Second pause—the bell boring on, but more faintheartedly, as if doubting whether it ever would reach that nerve.

Finally Western Union gave it up.

"A'right. Guess I will."

Clang of the gate: whine of the descending car: silence....

Softly P. Sybarite tiptoed down the stairs.

Disappointment, however, lay in ambush for him at his nefarious goal: evidently Western Union had been punctilious about his duty; not even so much as the tip of a corner of yellow envelope peeped from under the door.

Reckless in exasperation, P. Sybarite first wasted time educing a series of short, sharp barks from the bell—a peculiarly irritating noise, calculated (one would think) to rouse the dead—then tried the door and, finding it fast, in the end knelt and bent an ear to the keyhole, listening....

Not a sound: silence of the grave; the house deathly still. He could hear his own heart drumming; but, from Shaynon's flat, nothing....

Or—was that the creak of a board beneath a stealthy footstep?

If so, it wasn't repeated....

Again, could it be possible his ears did actually detect a sound of human respiration through the keyhole? Was Bayard Shaynon just the other side of that inch-wide pressed-steel barrier, the fire-proof door, cowering in throes of some paralysing fright, afraid to answer the summons?...

If so, why? What did he fear? The police, perhaps? And if so—why? What crime had become his so to unman him that he dared not open and put his fate to the test?...

Quickly there took shape in the imagination of the little Irishman a hideous vision of mortal Fear, wild-eyed, white-lipped, and all a-tremble, skulking in panic only a little beyond his reach: a fancy that so worked upon his nerves that he himself seemed infected with its shuddering dread, and thought to feel the fine hairs a-crawl on his neck and scalp and his flesh a-creep.

When at length he rose and drew away it was with all stealth, as though he too moved in the shadow of awful terror bred of a nameless crime....

Once more at Peter Kenny's door, his diffident fingers evoked from the bell but a single chirp—a sound that would by no means have gained him admission had Peter not been sitting up in bed, reading to while away the ache of his wound.

But it was ordered so; Peter was quick to answer the door; and P. Sybarite, pulling himself together (now that he had audience critical of his demeanour) walked in with a very tolerable swagger—with a careless, good-humoured nod for his host and a quick look round the room to make certain they were alone.

"Doctor been?"

"Oh—an hour ago."

"And—?"

"Says I'm all right if blood-poisoning doesn't set in."

Shutting the door, Peter grinned not altogether happily. "That's one of the most fetching features of the new code of medical ethics, you know—complete confidence inspired in patient by utter frankness on doctor's part—and all that!...

"'An insignificant puncture,'" he mimicked: "'you'll be right as rain in a week—unless the wound decides to gangrene—it's apt to, all on its own, 'spite of anything we can do—in which case we'll have to amputate your body to prevent infection spreading to your head.'...

"Well?" he wound up almost gaily. "What luck?"

"The worst. Where are my rags? I've got to change and run. Also—while you're up"—Peter had just dropped into a chair—"you might be good enough to mix me a Scotch and soda."

Whereupon, while changing his clothes, and between breaths and gulps of whiskey-and-water, P. Sybarite delivered himself of an abbreviated summary of what had happened at the ball and after.

"But why," he wound up peevishly—"why didn't you tell me Bayard Shaynon lived in the flat below you?"

"Didn't occur to me; and if you ask me, I don't see why it should interest you now."

"Because," said P. Sybarite quietly, "I'm going down there and break in as soon as I'm dressed fit to go to jail."

"In the sacred name of Insanity—!"

"If he's out, I'll steal that telegram and find out whether it has any bearing on the case. If it hasn't, I'll sift every inch of the room for a suspicion of a leading clue."

"But if he's in—?"

"I'll take my chances," said P. Sybarite with grim brevity.

"Unarmed?"

"Not if I know the nature of the brute." He stood up, fully dressed but for his shoes. "Now—my gun, please."

"Top drawer of the buffet there. How are you going? Fire escape?"

"Where is it?" P. Sybarite asked as he possessed himself of his weapon.

"Half a minute." Peter Kenny held out his hand. "Let's have a look at that gun—will you?"

"What for?"

"One of those newfangled automatic pistols—isn't it? I 've never seen one before."

"But—Great Scott!—you've had this here—"

"I know, but I didn't pay much attention—thinking of other things—"

"But you're delaying me—"

"Mean to," said Peter Kenny purposefully; and without giving P. Sybarite the least hint of his intention, suddenly imprisoned his wrist, grabbed the weapon by the barrel, and took it to himself—with the greater ease since the other neither understood nor attempted resistance.

"What in blazes—?" he enquired, puzzled, watching Peter turn the weapon over curiously in his hands. "I should think—"

"There!" Peter interrupted placidly, withdrawing the magazine clip from its slot in the butt and returning the now harmless mechanism. "Now run along. Fire-escape's outside the far window in the bedroom, yonder."

"What the deuce! What's the matter with you? Hand over that clip. What good is this gun without it?"

"For your present purpose, it's better than if loaded," Peter asserted complacently. "For purposes of intimidation—which is all you want of it—grand! And it can't go off by accident and make you an unintentional murderer."

P. Sybarite's jaw dropped and his eyes opened; but after an instant, he nodded in entire agreement.

"That's a head you have on your shoulders, boy!" said he. "As for mine, I've a notion that it has never really jelled."

He turned toward the bedroom, but paused.

"Only—why not say what you want? Why these roundabout ways to your purpose? Have you, by any chance, been educated for the bar?"

"That's the explanation," laughed Peter. "I'm to be admitted to practise next year. Meanwhile, circumlocution's my specialty."

"It is!" said P. Sybarite with conviction. "Well ... back in five minutes...."

Of all his weird adventures, this latest pleased him least. It's one thing to take chances under cover of night when your heart is light, your pockets heavy, and wine is buzzing wantonly within your head: but another thing altogether to burglarise your enemy's apartments via the fire-escape, in broad daylight, and cold-sober. For by now the light was clear and strong, in the open.

Yet to his relief he found no more than limpid twilight in the cramped and shadowed well down which zigzagged the fire-escape; while the opposite wall of the adjoining building ran blind from earth to roof; giving comfortable assurance that none could spy upon him save from the Monastery windows.

"One thing more"—Peter Kenny came to the window to advise, as P. Sybarite scrambled out upon the gridiron platform—"Shaynon's flat isn't arranged like mine. He's better off than I am, you know—can afford more elbow-room. I'm not sure, but I think you'll break in—if at all—by the dining-room window.... So long. Good luck!"

Clasping hands, they exchanged an anxious smile before P. Sybarite began his cautious descent.

Not that he found it difficult; the Monastery fire-escape was a series of steep flights of iron steps, instead of the primitive vertical ladder of round iron rungs in more general use. There was even a guard-rail at the outside of each flight. Consequently, P. Sybarite gained the eleventh floor platform very readily.

But there he held up a long instant, dashed to discover his task made facile rather than obstructed.

The window was wide open, to force whose latch he had thoughtfully provided himself with a fruit knife from Peter Kenny's buffet. Within was gloom and stillness absolute—the one rendered the more opaque by heavy velvet hangings, shutting out the light; the other with a quality individual and, as P. Sybarite took it, somehow intimidating—too complete in its promise.

And so for a darkly dubious moment the little man hung back. To his quick Celtic instinct there seemed to inhere, in that open, dark, and silent window, something as sinister and repellent as the inscrutable, soundless menace of a revolver presented to one's head.

Momentarily, indeed, he experienced anew something of that odd terror, unreasoning and inexcusable, that had assailed him some time since, outside the hall-door to this abode of enigmatic and uncanny quiet....

But at length, shaking his head impatiently—as if to rid it of its pestering swarm of fancies—he stepped noiselessly, in his unshod feet, down through the window, cautiously parted the draperies, and advanced into darkness so thick that there might as well have been night outside instead of glowing daybreak.

Then, with eyes becoming accustomed to the change, he made out shapes and masses that first confirmed Peter's surmise as to the nature of the room, and next gave him his bearings.

Over across from the window stood a door, its oblong dimly luminous with light softly shining down the walls of a private hall, from a point some distance to the left of the opening.

Rounding a dining-table, P. Sybarite stole softly on, and paused, listening, just within the threshold.

From some uncertain quarter—presumably the lighted room—he could hear a sound, very slight: so slight that it seemed guarded, but none the less unmistakable: the hiss of carbonated water squirting from a syphon into a glass.

Ceasing, a short wait followed and then a faint "Aah!" of satisfaction, with the thump of a glass set down upon some hard surface.

And at once, before P. Sybarite could by any means reconcile these noises with the summons at the front door that had been ignored within the quarter-hour, soft footfalls became audible in the private hall, shuffling toward the dining-room.

Instinctively the little man drew back (regretful now that he had yielded to Peter's prejudice against loaded pistols) retreating sideways along the wall until he had put the bulk of a massive buffet between him and the door; and, in the small space between that article of furniture and the corner of the room, waited with every nerve taut and muscle tense, in full anticipation of incontinent detection.

In line with these apprehensions, the footsteps came no further than the dining-room door; then died out for what seemed full two minutes—a pause as illegible to his understanding as their manifest stealth.

Why need Shaynon take such elaborate precautions against noises in his own lodgings?

Suddenly, and more confidently, the footfalls turned into the dining-room; and without glance right or left a man strode directly to the open window. There for an instant he delayed with an eye to the crack between the curtains; then, reassured, thrust one aside and stepped into the embrasure, there to linger with his head out of the window, intently reconnoitering, long enough to enable P. Sybarite to make an amazing discovery: the man was not Bayard Shaynon.

In silhouette against the light, his slight and supple form was unmistakable to one who had seen it before, even though his face was disfigured by a scant black visor across his eyes and the bridge of his nose.

He was Red November.



What P. Sybarite would have done had he been armed is problematical. What he did was remain moveless, even as he was breathless and powerless, but for his naked hands, either for offence or defence. For that November was armed was as unquestionable as his mastery of the long-barrelled revolver of blue steel (favoured by gunmen of the underworld) which he held at poise all the while he carefully surveyed his line of retreat.

At length, releasing the curtain, the gang leader hopped lightly out upon the grating, and disappeared.

In another breath P. Sybarite himself was at the window. A single glance through the curtains showed the grating untenanted; and boldly poking his head forth, he looked down to see the figure of the gunman, foreshortened unrecognisably, moving down the iron tangle already several flights below, singularly resembling a spider in some extraordinary web.

Incontinently, the little man ran back through the dining-room and down the private hall, abandoning every effort to avoid a noise.

No need now for caution, if his premonition wasn't worthless—if the vengeful spirit of Mrs. Inche had not stopped short of embroiling son with father, but had gone on to the end ominously shadowed forth by the appearance of the gunman in those rooms....

What he saw from the threshold of the lighted room was Bayard Shaynon still in death upon the floor, one temple shattered by a shot fired at close range from a revolver that lay with butt close to his right hand—carefully disposed with evident intent to indicate a case of suicide rather than of murder.



XXI

THE SORTIE

At pains not to stir across the threshold, with quick glances P. Sybarite reviewed scrupulously the scene of November's crime.

Eventually his nod indicated a contemptuous conclusion: that it should not prove difficult to convict November on the evidence afforded by the condition of the apartment alone. A most superficial inspection ought to convince anybody, even one prone to precipitate conclusions, that Bayard Shaynon had never died by his own hand.

If November, in depositing the instrument of his crime close to the hand of its victim, had meant to mislead, to create an inference of felo de se, he had ordered all his other actions with a carelessness arguing one of three things: cynical indifference to the actual outcome of his false clue; sublime faith in the stupidity of the police; or a stupidity of his own as crass as that said to be characteristic of the average criminal in all ages.

The rooms, in short, had been most thoroughly if hastily ransacked—in search, P. Sybarite didn't for an instant doubt, of evidence as to the relations between Shaynon and Mrs. Inche calculated to prove incriminating at an inquest; though the little man entertained even less doubt that lust for loot had likewise been a potent motive influencing November.

He found proof enough of this in the turned-out pockets of the murdered man; in the abstraction from the bosom of his shirt of pearl studs which P. Sybarite had noticed there within the hour; in the abraded knuckles of a finger from which a conspicuous solitaire diamond in massive antique setting was missing; in a pigskin bill-fold, empty, ripped, turned inside out, and thrown upon the floor not far from the corpse.

Then, too, in one corner stood a fine old mahogany desk of quaint design and many drawers and pigeonholes, one and all sacked, their contents turned out to litter the floor. In another corner, a curio cabinet had fared as ill. Even bookcases had not been overlooked, and stood with open doors and disordered shelves.

Not, however, with any notion of concerning himself with the assassin's apprehension and punishment did P. Sybarite waste that moment of hasty survey. His eyes were only keen and eager to descry the yellow Western Union message; and when he had looked everywhere else, his glance dropped to his feet and found it there—a torn and crumpled envelope with its enclosure flattened out and apart from it.

This last he snatched up, but the envelope he didn't touch, having been quick to remark the print upon it of a dirty thumb whose counterpart decorated the face of the message as well.

"And a hundred more of 'em, probably," P. Sybarite surmised as to the number of finger marks left by November: "enough to hang him ten times over ... which I hope and pray they don't before I finish with him!"

As for the dead man, he read his epitaph in a phrase, accompanied by a meaning nod toward the disfigured and insentient head.

"It was coming to you—and you got it," said P. Sybarite callously, with never a qualm of shame for the apathy with which he contemplated this second tragedy in the house of Shaynon.

Too much, too long, had he suffered at its hands....

With a shrug, he turned back to the hall door, listened an instant, gently opened it—with his handkerchief wrapped round the polished brass door-knob to guard against clues calculated to involve himself, whether as imputed principal or casual witness after the fact. For he felt no desire to report the crime to the police: let them find it out at their leisure, investigate and take what action they would; P. Sybarite had lost no love for the force that night, and meant to use it only at a pinch—as when, perchance, its services might promise to elicit the information presumably possessed by Red November in regard to the fate of Marian Blessington....

The public hall was empty, dim with the light of a single electric bulb, and still as the chamber of death that lay behind.

Never a shadow moved more silently or more swiftly than P. Sybarite, when he had closed the door, up the steps to Peter Kenny's rooms. Hardly a conceivable sound could be more circumspect than that which his knuckles drummed on the panels of Peter's door. And Peter earned a heartfelt, instant, and ungrudged blessing by opening without delay.

"Well?" he asked, when P. Sybarite—with a gesture enforcing temporary silence—had himself shut the door without making a sound. "Good Lord, man! You look as if you'd seen a ghost."

On the verge of agitated speech P. Sybarite checked to shake an aggrieved head.

"Bromides are grand for the nerves," he observed cuttingly, "but you're too young to need 'em—and I want none now.... Listen to me."

Briefly he told his story.

"Well, but the telegram?" Peter insisted. "Does it help—tell you anything? It's maddening—to think Marian may be in the power of that bloodthirsty—!"

"There you go again!" P. Sybarite complained—"and not two minutes ago I warned you about that habit. Wait: I've had time only to run an eye through this: let me get the sense of it."

Peter peering over his shoulder, the two conned the message in silence:

BAYARD SHAYNON Monastery Apts., W. 43rd, N.Y.C.

Your wire received all preparations made send patient in charge as indicated at convenience legal formalities can wait as you suggest.

HAYNES PRIVATE SANATORIUM.

Blankly Peter Kenny looked at his cousin; with eyes in which deepening understanding mingled with anger as deep, and with profound misgivings as well, P. Sybarite returned his stare.

"It's as plain as the face on you, Peter Kenny. Why, all along I've had an indefinite notion that something of the sort was what they were brewing! Don't you see—'private sanatorium'? What more proof do you need of a plot to railroad Marian to a private institution for the insane? 'Legal formalities can wait as you suggest'—of course! They hadn't had time to cook up the necessary papers, to suborn medical certificates and purchase a commitment paper of some corrupt judge. But what of that?" P. Sybarite demanded, slapping the message furiously. "She was in the way—at large—liable at any time to do something that would put her money forever out of their reach. Therefore she must be put away at once, pending 'legal formalities' to ensure her permanent incarceration!"

"The dogs!" Peter Kenny growled.

"But consider how they've been served out—thunderbolts—justice from the very skies! All except one, and," said P. Sybarite solemnly, "God do so to me and more also if he's alive or outside bars before this sun sets!"

"Who?"

"November!"

"What can you do to him?"

"To begin with, beat him to that damned asylum. Fetch me the suburban telephone directory."

"Telephone directory?"

"Yes!" P. Sybarite raved. "What else? Where is it? And where are your wits?"

"Why, here—"

Turning, Peter took the designated volume from its hook beneath the wall instrument at the very elbow of P. Sybarite.

"I thought," he commented mildly, "you had all your wits about you and could see it."

"Don't be impudent," grumbled P. Sybarite, rapidly thumbing the pages. "Westchester," he muttered, adding: "Oscahana—H—Ha—H-a-d—"

"Are you dotty?"

"Look at that telegram. It's dated from Oscahana: that's somewhere in Westchester, if I'm not mistaken. Yes; here we are: H-a-y—Haynes Private Sanatorium—number, Oscahana one-nine. You call 'em."

"What shall I say?"

"Where the devil's that cartridge clip you took away from me?... Give it here.... And I want my money."

"But," Peter protested in a daze, handing over the clip and watching P. Sybarite rummage in the buffet drawer wherein he had banked his fortune before setting out for the Bizarre—"but what do you want me to—"

"Call up that sanatorium—find out if Marian has arrived. If she has, threaten fire and sword and—all that sort of thing—if they don't release her—hand her over to me on demand. If she hasn't, make 'em understand I'll dynamite the place if they let November bring her there and get away before I show up. Tell 'em to call in the police and pinch November on sight. And then get a lawyer and send him up there after me. And then—set the police after November—tell 'em you heard the shot and went down the fire-escape to investigate.... I'm off."

The door slammed on Peter as Bewilderment.

In the hall, savagely punching the elevator bell, P. Sybarite employed the first part of an enforced wait to return the clip of cartridges to its chamber in the butt of Mrs. Inche's pistol....

He punched the bell again....

He put his thumb upon the button and held it there....

From the bottom of the twelve-story well a faint, shrill tintinnabulation echoed up to him. But that was all. The car itself never stirred.

Infuriated, he left off that profitless employment and threw himself down the stairs, descending in great bounds from landing to landing, more like a tennis ball than a fairly intelligent specimen of mature humanity in control of his own actions.

Expecting to be met by the ascending car before halfway to the bottom, he came to the final flight not only breathless but in a towering rage—contemplating nothing less than a murderous assault as soon as he might be able to lay hands upon the hallboys—hoping to find them together that he might batter their heads one against the other.

But he gained the ground-floor lobby to find it as empty as his own astonishment—its doors wide to the cold air of dawn, its lights dimmed to the likeness of smouldering embers by the stark refulgence of day; but nowhere a sign of a hallboy or anything else in human guise.

As he paused to make sure of the reality of this phenomenon, and incidentally to regain his breath, there sounded from a distance down the street a noise the like of which he had never before heard: a noise resembling more than anything else the almost simultaneous detonations of something like half a dozen firecrackers of sub-cannon calibre.

Without understanding this or even being aware that he had willed his limbs to action, P. Sybarite found himself in the street.

At the curb his hired car waited, its motor purring sweetly but its chauffeur missing.

Subjectively he was aware that the sun was up and high enough to throw a sanguinary glare upon the upper stories of the row of garages across the street—those same from whose number he had chartered his touring car. And momentarily he surmised that perhaps the chauffeur had strolled over to the garage on some idle errand.

But no sooner had this thought enhanced his irritation than he had its refutation in the discovery of the chauffeur affectionately embracing a lamp-post three or four doors away, toward Sixth Avenue; and so singular seemed this sight that P. Sybarite wondered if, by any chance, the fellow had found time to get drunk during so brief a wait.

At once, blind to all else, and goaded intolerably by his knowledge that the time was short if he were to forestall November at the asylum in Oscahana, he pelted hot-foot after the delinquent; came up with him in a trice; tapped him smartly on the shoulder.

"Here!" he cried indignantly—"what the deuce's the matter with you?"

The man showed him a face pale with excitement; recognised his employer; but made no offer to stir.

"Come!" P. Sybarite insisted irascibly. "I've no time to waste. Get a move on you, man!"

But as he spoke his accents were blotted out by a repetition of that portentous noise which had saluted him in the lobby of the Monastery, a moment since.

His eyes, veering inevitably toward the source of that uproar, found it quickly enough to see short, vicious jets of flame licking out against the gloom of an open garage doorway, nearly opposite the Hippodrome stage entrance—something like a hundred feet down the street.

"What," he cried, "in Hades—!"

"Gang fight," his chauffeur informed him briefly: "fly-cops cornered a bunch of 'em in November's garage—"

"Whose garage—?"

"Red November's! Guess you've heard of him," the man pursued eagerly. "That's right—he runs his own garage—taxis for Dutch House souses, yunno—"

"Wait!" P. Sybarite interrupted. "Let me get this straight."

Stimulated by this news, his wits comprehended the situation at a glance.

At the side of his chauffeur, he found himself in line with a number of that spontaneous class which at the first hint of sensation springs up from nowhere in the streets of Manhattan. Early as was the hour, they were already quite fifty strong; and every minute brought re-enforcements straggling up from Fifth Avenue.

But the lamp-post—still a mute, insensate recipient of the chauffeur's amorous clasp—marked a boundary beyond which curiosity failed to allure.

Similarly at Sixth Avenue, a rabble was collecting, blocking the roadway and backing up to the Elevated pillars and surface-car tracks—but to a man balking at an invisible line drawn from corner to corner.

Midway, the dark open doorway to November's garage yawned forbiddingly; and in all the space that separated these two gatherings of spectators, there were visible just three human figures: a uniformed patrolman, and two plain-clothes men—the former at a discreet distance, the two latter more boldly stationed and holding revolvers ready for instant employment.

"Fly-cops," the chauffeur named the two in citizen's clothing: "I piped 'em stickin' round while you was inside, an' was wonderin' what they was after, when all of a sudden I sees November duck up from the basement next door to the Monastery, and they tries to jump him. That ain't two minutes ago. November dodges, pulls a gun, and fights 'em off until he can back into the garage—"

A hand holding an automatic edged into sight round the corner of the garage door—and the pistol sang like a locust. Instantly one of the detectives fired. The pistol clattered to the walk as the hand disappeared. One shot at least had told for law and order.

"Anybody hurt yet?" P. Sybarite asked.

"Not that I know anythin' about."

"But what do you suppose makes 'em keep that door open? You'd think—"

"The way I figure it," the chauffeur cut in, "Red's plannin' to make his getaway in a car. He's just waitin' till the goin' looks good, and then he'll sail outa there like a streak of greased lightnin'. Yuh wanta be ready to duck, too, 'cause he'll come this way, an' keep guns goin' to prevent anybody from hinderin' him."

"Why this way? Sixth Avenue's nearer."

"Sure it is, but that way he'd have them L pillars to duck, to say nothin' of the crowd, and no tellin' but what a surface-car might block him. Yuh watch an' see 'f I ain't doped it out right."

From the dark interior of the besieged garage another automatic fluttered briskly; across the street a window fell in....

"Look here—you come with me," said P. Sybarite suddenly, plucking his chauffeur by the sleeve.

With a reluctant backward glance, the man suffered himself to be drawn apart from the crowd.

"How much nerve have you got?" the little Irishman demanded.

"Who—me? Why?"

"I want to stop this getaway—"

"Not for mine, friend." The chauffeur laughed scornfully. "I ain't lost no Red November!"

"Will a thousand dollars make you change your mind?"

The chauffeur's eyes narrowed.

"Whatcha drivin' at? Me—why—I'd take a lotta chances for a thousand."

"Help me—do as I say—and it's yours."

"Lead me to the coin," was the prompt decision.

"Here, then!"

P. Sybarite delved hastily into a trousers pocket and produced a handful of bills of large denominations.

"There's a five hundred dollar bill to start with," he rattled, stripping off the first that fell to his fingers—"and here's a hundred—no, here's another five instead."

"In the mitt," the chauffeur stipulated simply, extending his palm. "Either you're crazy or I am—but in the mitt, friend, and I'll run the car right into that garage, 'f you say so."

"Nothing so foolish as that." P. Sybarite handed over the two bills and put away the rest of his wealth. "Just jump into that car and be ready to swing across the street and block 'em as they come."

"You're on!" agreed the chauffeur with emotion—carefully putting his money away.

"And a thousand more"—his courage wrung this tribute from P. Sybarite's admiration—"if you're hurt—"

"You're on there, too—and don't think for a minute I'll letcha fergit, neither."

The chauffeur turned to his car, jumped into the driver's seat, and advanced the spark. The purr of the motor deepened to a leonine growl.

"Hello!" he exclaimed in surprise, real or feigned, to see P. Sybarite take the seat by his side. "What t'ell? Who's payin' you to be a God-forsaken ass?"

"Did you think I'd ask you to run a risk that frightened me?"

"Dunno's I thought much about it, but 'f yuh wanta know what I think now, I think you oughta get a rebate outa whatcha give me—if you live to apply for it. And I don't mind tellin' you, if you do, you won't get it."

Again the spiteful drumming of the automatic: P. Sybarite swung round in time to see one of the plain-clothes men return the fire with several brisk shots, then abruptly drop his revolver, clap a hand to his bosom, wheel about-face, and fall prone.

A cry shrilled up from the bystanders, only to be drowned out by another, but fortunately more harmless, fusillade from the garage.

"Tunin' up!" commented the chauffeur grimly. "Sounds to me like they was about ready to commence!"

P. Sybarite shut his teeth on a nervous tremor and lost a shade or two of colour.

"Ready?" he said with difficulty.

The chauffeur's reply was muffled by another volley; on the echoes of which the little man saw the nose of a car poke diagonally out of the garage door, pause, swerve a trifle to the right, and pause once again....

"They're coming!" he cried wildly. "Stand by, quick!"

The alarm was taken up and repeated by two-score throats, while those dotting the street and sidewalks near by broke in swift panic and began madly to scuttle to shelter within doorways and down basement steps....

Like an arrow from the string, November's car broke cover at an angle. Ignoring the slanting way from threshold to gutter, it took the bump of the curb apparently at full tilt, and skidded to the northern curb before it could be brought under control and its course shaped eastward.

With a shiver P. Sybarite recognised that car.

It was not the taxicab that he had been led to expect, but the same maroon-coloured limousine into which he had assisted Marian Blessington at the Bizarre.

On its front seats were two men—Red November himself at the driver's side, a revolver in either hand. And the body of the car contained one passenger, at least, if P. Sybarite might trust to an impression gained in one hasty glance through the forward windows as the car bore down upon them—November's weapons spitting fire....

He could not say who that one passenger might be; but he could guess; and guessing, knew the automatic in his grasp to be useless; he dared not fire at the gangster for fear of loosing a wild bullet into the body of the car....

Now they were within fifty feet of one another. By contrast with the apparent slowness of the touring car to get in motion, the limousine seemed already to have attained locomotive speed.

A yell and a shot from one of November's revolvers (P. Sybarite saw the bullet score the asphalt not two feet from the forward wheel) warned them to clear the way as the gang leader's car swerved wide to pass them.

And on this the touring car seemed to get out of control, swinging across the street. Immediately the other, crowded to the gutter, attempted to take the curb, but, the wheels meeting it at an angle not sufficiently acute, the manoeuvre failed. To a chorus of yells November's driver shut down the brakes not a thought too soon—not soon enough, indeed, to avoid a collision that crumpled a mudguard as though it had been a thing of pasteboard.

Simultaneously P. Sybarite's chauffeur set the brakes, and with the agility of a hounded rabbit seeking its burrow, dived from his seat to the side of the car farthest from the gangsters.

In an instant he was underneath it.

P. Sybarite, on the other hand, had leaped before the accident.

Staggering a pace or two—and all the time under fire—he at length found his feet not six feet from the limousine. It had stopped broadside on. In this position he commanded the front seats without great danger of sending a shot through the body.

His weapon rose mechanically and quite deliberately he took aim—making assurance doubly sure throughout what seemed an age made sibilant by the singing past his head of the infuriated gangster's bullets.

But his finger never tightened upon the trigger.

November had ceased firing and was plucking nervously at the slide of his automatic. His driver had jumped down from his seat and was scuttling madly up the street.

In a breath P. Sybarite realised what was the matter: as automatics will, when hot with fast firing, November's had choked on an empty shell.

With a sob of excitement the little man lowered his weapon and flung himself upon the gang leader.

November rose to meet him, reversing his pistol and aiming at P. Sybarite's head a murderous blow. This, however, the little man was alert to dodge. November came bodily into his arms. Grappling, the two reeled and went down, P. Sybarite's fingers closing on the throat of the assassin just as the latter's head struck the pavement with brutal force.

The man shivered, grunted, and lay still.

P. Sybarite disengaged and got up on his feet.



XXII

TOGETHER

In a daze, P. Sybarite shook and felt himself all over, unable to credit his escape from that rain of bullets.

But he was apparently unharmed.

Kismet!...

Then suddenly he quickened to the circumstances: the thing was finished, November stunned and helpless at his feet, November's driver making off, the crowd swarming round, the police an imminent menace.

Now if Marian were in the body of the town-car, as he believed, he must get her out of it and away before the police and detectives could overtake and apprehend them both.

Instant action, inspired audacity, a little luck—and the thing might possibly be accomplished.

His chauffeur was crawling ignominiously out from beneath the touring car—his countenance livid with grime and the pallor of fright. Meeting the eye of his employer, he grinned a sheepish grin.

P. Sybarite seized him by the arm.

"Are you hurt?"

"Not ten cents' worth—much less a thousand dollars! No such luck!"

His mouth to the fellow's ear, P. Sybarite whispered hoarsely and hurriedly:

"Unhook your license number—throw it in the car—get ready to move on the word—lady in that car—kidnapped—I love her—d'you understand?—we must get her away—another thousand in this for you—"

"Gotcha," the man cut in smartly. "And I'm with you to the last act! Go to it, bo'—I like your style!"

Swinging about, P. Sybarite jumped upon the running-board of the maroon-coloured car, wrenched the door open, and stumbled in.

In her evening frock and her cloak of furs, Marian lay huddled in a corner, wrists and ankles alike made fast with heavy twine, her mouth closed tight by a bandanna handkerchief passed round her jaws and knotted at the nape of her neck. Above its folds her face was like snow, but the little man thought to detect in her staring eyes a hint of intelligence, and on this he counted with all his soul.

"Don't scream!" he pleaded as, whipping out a pocket knife, he severed her bonds. "Don't do anything but depend on me. Pretend, if you like, you don't know what's happening—likely you don't at that! No matter. Have faith in me; I'll get you clear of this yet!"

He fancied a softening look in those wide and frightened eyes of a child.

An instant's work loosed her scored and excoriated wrists; in another, the bonds fell from her ankles. Deftly unknotting the bandage that closed her mouth, he asked could she walk. With difficulty, in a husky and painful whisper, but still courageously, she told him yes.

Hopeful, rather than counting on this assurance, he jumped out and offered his hand. She put hers into it (and it was cold as ice), stirred, rose stiffly, tottered to the door, and fell into his arms....

A uniformed patrolman, breaking through the crowd about them, seized P. Sybarite and held him fast.

"What's this? Who's this?" he gabbled incoherently, brandishing a vaguely formidable fist.

"A lady, you fool!" P. Sybarite snapped. "Let go and catch that scoundrel over there—if you're worth your salt."

He waved his free hand broadly in the direction taken by November's driver.

Abruptly and without protest the patrolman released him, butted his way through the crowd, and disappeared.

An arm boldly about Marian's waist, P. Sybarite helped her to the step of the touring car—and blessed that prince among chauffeurs, who was up and ready in his seat!

But now again he must be hindered: a plain-clothes man dropped a heavy hand upon his shoulder and screwed the muzzle of a revolver into P. Sybarite's ear.

"Under arrest!" he blatted wildly. "Carrying fire-arms! Causing a crowd to collect—!"

"All right—all right!" P. Sybarite told him roughly. "I admit it. I'm not resisting, am I? Take that gun out of my ear and help me get this lady into the car before she's trampled and torn to pieces by these staring fools!"

Stupidly enough, the man comprehended some part of his admonishment. Staring blankly from the little man to the girl, he pocketed his weapon and, grasping Marian's arm, assisted her into the touring car.

"Thanks!" cried P. Sybarite, jumping up on the running-board. "You're most amiable, my friend!"

And with the heel of his open hand he struck the man forcibly upon the chest, so that he reeled back, tripped over the hapchance foot of an innocent by-stander, and went sprawling and blaspheming upon his back.

Somebody laughed hysterically.

"Go!" P. Sybarite cried to the chauffeur.

The crowd gave way before the lunge of the car....

They were halfway to Fifth Avenue before pursuit was thought of; had turned the corner before it was fairly started; in five minutes had thrown it off entirely and were running free at a moderate pace up Broadway just above Columbus Circle....

"Where to now, boss?" the chauffeur presently enquired.

P. Sybarite looked enquiringly at his charge. Since her rescue she had neither moved nor spoken—had rested motionless in her corner of the tonneau, eyes closed, body relaxed and listless. But now she roused; unveiled the dear wonder of her eyes of brown; even mustered up the ghost of a smile.

"Wherever you think best," she told him gently.

"The Plaza? You might be bothered there. We may be traced—we're sure to. This only saves us for the day. To-morrow—reporters—all that—perhaps. Perhaps not!... Don't you know somebody out of town to whom you could go for the day? Once across the city line, we're safe for a little."

She nodded: breathed an address in Westchester County....

Some time later P. Sybarite became sensible of an amazing fact. A hand of his rested on the cushioned seat, and in it lay, now warm and wonderfully soft and light, Marian's hand.

He stared incredulously until he had confirmed the substance of this impression; looked up blinking; met the confident, straightforward, and wistful regard of the girl; and blushed to his brows.

The car swept on and on, through the golden hush of that glorious Sunday morning....



XXIII

PERCEVAL UNASHAMED

Toward ten of that same Sunday morning a touring car of majestic mien drew up in front of a boarding-house in Thirty-eighth Street West.

From this alighted a little man of somewhat bedraggled appearance, wearing a somewhat weather-beaten but heartfelt grin.

Ostentatiously (or so it seemed to one solitary and sour-mouthed spectator, disturbed in his perusal of a comic supplement on the brownstone stoop of the boarding-house) he shook hands with the chauffeur, and, speaking guardedly, confirmed some private understanding with him.

Then the car rolled off, and P. Sybarite shuffled meekly in through the gate, crossed the dooryard, and met the outraged glare of George Bross with an apologetic smile and the request:

"If you've got a pack of Sweets about you, George, I can use one in my business."

Without abating his manifestation of entire disapproval, George produced a box of cigarettes, permitted P. Sybarite to select one, and helped himself.

They shared a match, even as brothers might, before honest indignation escaped the grim portals of the shipping clerk's mouth.

"Sa-ay!" he exploded—"looky here: where've you been all night?"

"Ah-h!" P. Sybarite sighed provokingly: "that's a long and tiresome story, George."

With much the air of a transient, he sat him down by George's side.

"A very long and very weary story, George. I don't like to tell it to you, really. We'd be sure to quarrel."

"Why?" George demanded aggressively.

"Because you wouldn't believe me. I don't quite believe it myself, now that all's over, barring a page or two. Your great trouble, George, is that you have no imagination."

"The devil I ain't!"

"Perfectly right: you haven't. If you point with pride to that wild flight of fancy which identified 'Molly Lessing' with Marian Blessington, George, your position is (as you yourself would say) untenable. It wasn't imagination: it was fact."

"No!" George ejaculated. "Is that right? What'd I tell you?"

"Word of honour! But it's a secret, as yet—from everybody except you and Violet; and even you we wouldn't tell had you not earned the right to know by guessing and making me semi-credulous—enough to start something—several somethings, in fact."

"G'wan!" George coaxed. "Feed it to me: I'll eat it right outa your hand. Whatcha been doin' with yourself all night, P.S.?"

"I've been Day of Days-ing myself, George."

"Ah, can the kiddin', P.S. Come through! Whadja do?"

"Broke every Commandment in the Decalogue, George, barring one or two of the more indelicate ones; kicked the laws of chance and probability into a cocked hat; fractured most of the Municipal Ordinances—and—let me see—oh, yes!—dislocated the Long Arm of Coincidence so badly that all of its subsequent performances are going to seem stiff and lacking in that air of spontaneity without which—"

"My Gawd!" George despaired—"he's off again on that hardy annual talkalogue of his!... Lis'n, P.S.—"

"Call me Perceval," P. Sybarite suggested pleasantly.

"Wh-at!"

"Let it be Perceval hereafter, George—always. I grant you free permission."

"But I thought you said—"

"So I did—a few hours ago. Now I—well, I rather like it. It makes all the difference who calls you that sort of name first, and what her voice is like."

"One of us," George protested with profound conviction, "is plumb loony in the head!"

"It's me," said P. Sybarite humbly: "I admit it.... And the worst of it is—I like it! So would you if you'd been through a Day of Days."

George let that pass; for the moment he was otherwise engaged in vain speculation as to the appearance of a phenomenon rather rare in the calendar of that West Thirty-eighth Street boarding-house.

A Western Union boy, weary with the weariness of not less than forty summers, was shuffling in at the gate.

"Sa-ay!" he called with the asperity of ingrained ennui—"either of youse guys know a guy named Perceval Sybarite 't lives here?"

Silently P. Sybarite held out his hand, took the greasy little book in its black oil-cloth binding, scrawled his signature in the proper blank, and received the message in its sealed yellow envelope.

"Wait," he commanded calmly, eyeing Western Union with suspicion.

"W'at's eatin' you? Is they an answer?"

"They ain't no answer," P. Sybarite admitted.

"Well, whatcha want? I got no time to stick round here kiddin'."

"One moment of your valuable time. I believe you delivered a message at the Monastery Apartments in Forty-third Street this morning."

"Well, an' what 'f I did?"

"Only this."

P. Sybarite extracted an immense roll of bills from his pocket; transferred it to his other hand; delved deeper; eventually produced a single twenty-dollar gold-piece.

"Take this," he said, tossing it to the boy with princely nonchalance. "It's the last of a lot, but—it's yours."

"What for?" Western Union demanded in amaze; while, as for George Bross, he developed plain symptoms of apoplexy.

"You'll never know," said P. Sybarite. "Now run along before I come to."

In the shadow of this threat, Western Union fled precipitately....

P. Sybarite rose; yawned; smiled benignantly upon George Bross.

"I'm off to bed—was only waiting for this message," he announced; "but before I go—tell me; how much money does Violet think you ought to be earning before you're eligible for the Matrimonial Stakes?"

"She said somethin' oncet about fifty per," George remembered gloomily.

"It's yours—doubled," P. Sybarite told him. "To-morrow you will resign from the employ of Whigham & Wimper and go to Blessington's to enter their shipping department at a hundred a week; and if you don't earn it, may God have mercy on your wretched soul!"

George got up very suddenly.

"I'll go send for the doctor," he announced.

"One moment more." P. Sybarite dropped a detaining hand upon his arm. "You and Violet are invited to dinner to-night—at the Hotel Plaza. Don't be alarmed; you needn't dress; we'll dine privately in Marian's apartment."

"Marian!"

"Miss Blessington—Molly Lessing that was."

"Honest!" said George sincerely. "I don't know whether to think you've gone bughouse or not. You've always been a bit queer and foolish in the bean, but never since I've known you—"

"And after dinner," P. Sybarite pursued evenly, "you're going to attend a very quiet little wedding party."

"Whose, for God's sake?"

"Marian's and mine; and the only reason why you can't be best man is that the best man will be my cousin, Peter Kenny."

"Is that straight?"

"On the level."

George concluded that there was sanity in P. Sybarite's eyes.

"Well, I certainly got to slip you the congrats!" he protested. "And say—you goin' to bounce Whigham and Wimper, too?"

"Yes."

"And whatcha goin' do then?"

"I? To tell you the truth, I'm considering joining the Union and agitating for an eight-hour Day of Days. This one of mine has been eighteen hours long, more or less—since I got those theatre tickets, you know—and I'm too dog-tired to keep my eyes open another minute. After I've had a nap, I'll tell you all about everything." ...



But he wasn't too tired to read his telegram, when he found himself again, and for the last time, in his hall bedroom.

It said simply: "I love you.—Marian."

From this P. Sybarite looked up to his reflection in the glass. And presently he smiled sheepishly, and blinked.

"Perceval...!" murmured the little man fondly.

THE END



By the author of "The Brass Bowl"

THE BANDBOX

By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

Author of "The Day of Days," "The Destroying Angel," etc.

Illustrated by A.I. Keller. Cloth. $1.25 net.

Divertingly told, in Mr. Vance's familiarly vigorous style, it never fails to entertain.—Boston Transcript.

Mr. Vance uses the wand of a conjurer—his humor comes bubbling to the surface all the time.—New York Tribune.

The yarn is excellently calculated to pass the time of a jaded novel reader.... The story is quite surprising enough, and amusing at that.—New York Evening Sun.

It is a rousing tale of adventure and love told with verve and humor. Many will pronounce it the best story yet written by the author of "The Brass Bowl."—Chicago Record-Herald.

The tale bristles with breathless adventure, mistaken identities, detective investigations, romantic developments, and startling situations.... It is a rousing story, told with a stimulating style, and culminating in love rewarded; but, before that happy end is reached, there are many thrilling revelations.—Literary Digest, New York.

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON



A Curious Story of Woman's Love

THE DESTROYING ANGEL

By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE

Author of "The Bandbox," "The Day of Days," etc.

Illustrated by A.I. Keller. Cloth. $1.25 net.

Mr. Vance keeps events moving too fast to cast any shadows before.—New York World.

A very readable story ... Certainly there is not a dull moment in the book.—New York Times.

It's a good story, well told, with plenty of brisk down-to-date humor, and its few characters stand out well.—Los Angeles Times.

Full of romance and strange surprises ... A narrative of dramatic events, thrilling adventures, and all-conquering passion that makes a swiftly moving tale.—Philadelphia North American.

Half a dozen less vigorous and full-blooded stories might be built from the material so lavishly employed ... There is no moment, from start to finish, when the story is not absorbing, and the end of the narrative, which winds to a happy climax, is all that the most ardent romancist could desire.—Chicago Record-Herald.

LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 34 BEACON STREETFOSTON