AND HOW WE BROUGHT HOME A DIFFICULTY
It was a matter of seconds. I vaulted over the spare tires into the
chauffeur's seat, pulling the throttle open while I felt for my pedals;
and as I did so, I heard the door of the limousine slam behind me. A
hasty glance over my shoulder showed me that the back of the car was
clear. I jerked in the reverse and raised my feet; and with a roar and a
stream of blue smoke, the machine swung backward across the street,
while I twisted furiously at the wheel. One of the men caught at me as
we began to move, but the suddenness of our starting helped the push I
gave him to throw him off his balance. He sprawled on his back in the
gutter, and an instant later I was in my second speed and half-way up
the block. The policeman behind us was firing his revolver; whether at
us or our tires or the sky I had no time to guess. And I took the first
corner with my heart in my mouth and an empty feeling in my stomach,
praying that we might get around it right side up. A shadow ran out from
the curb and sprang for the running-board; but my hands and eyes were so
busy in front of me that I did not know whether we missed him or ran him
down.
Speed was impossible over the cobbles; our only chance was to take as
many turnings as possible to avoid being headed, and for the next few
minutes we swayed and slid around treacherous corners through a darkness
that was full of shouts and whistlings and gesticulating enemies. I
wondered that every blue-coated figure running blindly up the lane of
our lights did not stop us, and that at every turning we had neither
upset nor skidded into the opposite curb. It was wild work at the best;
and considering that I was driving a heavy and unfamiliar car over slimy
pavements, I can not understand now how we avoided either accident or
capture. But presently the headlights showed a long, dark street, clear
of interference. We raced up it at a rate that seemed to loosen every
tooth in my head, and numbed my fingers upon the rattling wheel. The
noise was fairly behind us. After a couple more turns, it had grown
fainter; and I slowed to a saner speed, watching the street lamps for
knowledge of my whereabouts. Then I became conscious that there was a
man beside me in the car.
He was huddled in a heap on the floor, between the seat and the dash,
hanging on desperately, and crowding himself into the least possible
space as if to keep out of sight. As soon as I could spare a hand, I
began to pound him over the head and neck. I was in no mood for half
measures. He cowered back on to the running-board, shielding himself
with an arm and turning up an absurd and ugly face of terror. It was our
highly respectable chauffeur.
"Oh, for God's sake, don't, sir!" he croaked, shrinking back out of
reach. "I won't interfere with you nor nothing. I'll get out as soon as
we get fair away. Only I'd ha' been took up sure, sir, and there's me
character gone."
"Get into that seat and keep still," I said, "or you'll have us all
taken up. Get in, I tell you."
He crawled into the seat, shaking and protesting. There were tears in
his voice, and I think actually in his eyes.
"Do you know your way out of this?" I demanded.
"No, sir. I haven't a notion. I'll get out and ask." He was apparently
too frightened to know his own mind, but I had made up mine. He was
better with us than wandering about the city, telling murder stories.
"Stay where you are," I snapped, "you'll go home with us, and keep your
head shut."
"Oh, I can't think of it, sir. We'll never get home after this. I'll get
out here. It's murder and resisting arrest and endangering traffic.
They'll have me an accomplice."
I caught at his collar as he tried to stand up, and jerked him back into
the seat. Before he could make another move, I had shut off and got my
right hand on the revolver. I held it across my knees under the wheel,
and slipped the holster off it.
"You're going to sit still and keep quiet," I said, "and you're going
wherever we go. Do you understand?"
He sat like a graven image after that, with no sound but an occasional
sniff. I slid the revolver between me and the edge of the seat, and we
went on. He might have known that I should never have dared to use it;
but either he was too shaken and stupid to put himself in my place, or
he lacked the nerve to try me. All this time we had been working
westward as fast as the rough going and my divided attention would
allow. Now and then some one shouted after us. But it was still dark and
we were soon out of sight around a corner, and the few policemen who
concerned themselves with us at all did not trouble themselves to
whistle up a hue and cry. Presently the black bulk of the elevated gave
me my bearings, and I turned north under it, running along the car
tracks. The lights and the scattered traffic, and the occasional roaring
of a train overhead, seemed curiously homelike and comfortable. I felt
as if I were waking out of a nightmare.
We crossed over to Union Square and hurried carefully through
civilization. I was afraid of Fifth Avenue; even at this hour, too many
of the guardians of the peace there were provided with better means of
speed than their own feet; and I did not like the attention we still
seemed to attract, now that we were safe away from our original trouble
and running at an ordinary rate. Madison Avenue was decently asleep; and
its empty length must have tempted me to unreasonable speed, for the few
people we passed stopped to stare, and call after us unmeaningly. I
expected every moment to meet a mounted policeman, and held myself ready
to slow down or take a sudden corner; but none appeared, and I turned
into the leafy darkness of Central Park with a sigh of relief. I was
more than a little anxious for the safety of my passengers within.
I stopped in the deepest shade I could find, and clambered out. Lady's
face was at the door almost before I could open it.
"Are you all right?" she panted. I could see only her eyes and the
outline of her face like a white shadow.
"Yes; are you?"
She laughed nervously. "I'm as well as when we started, and Sheila is
better. She has come to herself now. Can you find some water? I have a
flask here."
"There are fountains all along these drives. We'll run ahead until we
come to one of them."
As I spoke, there was a thud behind me, and a quick patter of running
feet. The excellent Thomas had taken advantage of my forgetfulness to
break for liberty. He was out of sight almost before I turned; and he
had been thoughtful enough to throw the revolver away as he jumped.
"I'm a clever idiot," I said ruefully, "your chauffeur has been trying
to desert all along, and now he's done it."
"But you were driving, yourself. What difference does it make?"
"I was thinking of what he might say," said I. "But for that matter, I
suppose I have got you into a newspaper scrape anyhow, if nothing worse.
Every policeman on the East Side must have our number."
"I was just going to ask you about that," said Lady, with a queer little
crow in her voice. "Perhaps we had better carry this outside now." She
felt about her feet and handed me a muddy strip of metal. "I took this
off while you were starting the car. And I put out that red lantern
thing, too."
For an instant I forgot Doctor Reid and all the mountain of
impossibility that lay between us. She had always been more than other
women. And now she was that rarest thing of all, a comrade ready in a
moment of need. I reached out my hand, as if she had been a man.
"You're a miracle," I said, "and I'm not half good enough to be your
lieutenant. Good work."
There was a broken whisper from the darkness within.
"The water," said Lady, "we're forgetting Sheila."
I replaced our number, lighted the tail-lamp, and a little farther on
found a drinking fountain and got the water. Mrs. Carucci was able to
speak only a few words of unsteady thanks; but that was enough to make
me fall in love with the crooning voice of her. We pushed on out of town
without any further adventure; and on the open roads off to the
northward were free to make the most of our speed.
The night slowly faded, not as if any light were coming, but as if the
darkness itself were growing faint and weak. The roadside trees were
still mysterious bulks against remoter gloom, but their blackness now
gave a dull hint of green and the yellow glare of our lamps grew washed
out and lifeless. The crowing of cocks, reiterated from place to place,
sounded fictitious and unnatural. The air chilled a little and here and
there we ran through a momentary blindness of mist, as if a small cloud
had fallen to drift along the surface of the earth. I sat back half
drowsily, with relaxed nerves; and although I had no desire for sleep,
although I never loosened my hands upon the wheel, nor took my eyes for
a second from the wavering end of the ribbon of light that unwound
itself continually toward me, yet I felt somehow unreal and very
peaceful, without will or memory, like a person in a dream. The car
obeyed me without my being conscious of any movement, as if I guided it
by my mere volition. Slowly the pallor around me changed from green to
gray; the air freshened as the stars went out; and the twitter of birds
and the scattered barking of dogs underran the unvarying, inevitable
drumming of the engine. That sound itself dried and hardened in the
keener atmosphere. And in the pleasure of the perfect power under me, I
let the car out nearly to the limit of its speed, until the sidelong
sway of the body warned me that I was driving too fast for the road. We
passed a milk wagon or two and an occasional early trolley. Then came
the dawn, so swiftly that it was full day of sunlight and shadow before
I thought to look for color in the east. Somehow it did not seem like
morning, but like coming out of a curtained house into the midst of
afternoon.
It was part of this same strangeness that I only felt the exhilaration
of the present without any thought of trouble that lay before me and
behind. I was a conquering hero, carrying my princess home in triumph
out of the castle of the enchanter. I had overcome desperate accidents
and won my spurs; this page of the fairy-tale bore a picture in shining
colors, and I knew of neither the last page nor the next. It was in this
mood that I passed, unheeding, through the gathering familiarity of
nearer landmarks, past the inn and up the winding hill, and drew up at
last before the Tabors' door with some vague fancy that I should hear a
trumpet blown. I suppose that I was unconsciously very tired and in part
asleep, so that it came upon me with the shock of a violent awakening
when the front door swung open and Mr. Tabor hurried out to meet us,
followed by Doctor Reid.
The fairy-tale burst like a bubble, and the actuality of all that those
two men stood for in my last few days and all the days to come drowned
me in a breath. I got down mechanically to help them. I suppose we must
have spoken a few words while Lady was getting out of the car and Mrs.
Carucci was helped down and half-carried into the house between the two
men. But I do not remember. I remember only the three figures in the
doorway, the drooping woman, with their arms about her. Then the door
closed, and Lady stood alone upon the steps above me. Her eyes were
larger for the shadows under them; but there was no bloom upon her, and
I wondered why I had thought her really beautiful.
"I'll take the car around and leave it," I said. "Good-by."
"You're a strange man," she muttered; then with her sudden smile,
"Aren't you coming in to breakfast? You've had an adventure, and you
ought to be hungry."
Her tone jarred. "Never mind that," I said bitterly. "I was to go this
morning, and I'm going. There's still plenty of time for my train. The
sooner it's over with, the better."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Mean? I mean what you told me--and one thing more, I understand now
what you meant yesterday, because I found your marriage notice in an old
paper."
"What marriage notice? I don't understand."
"Yours; on the twenty-sixth of May three years ago, to Doctor Reid.
That's all. I beg your pardon."
The color came back into her face; and under the trouble of her brows I
thought she almost smiled.
"That was my sister," she said quietly. "My name's Margaret; I thought
you knew."