CRAIG STRIKES
Sevier had stepped back as they entered. He had not been startled at
the ambush; he had gone past surprises. He was conscious only of a
cold preparedness and a kind of dull wonder as to the form of their
errand. The purpose in Craig's face left no cause for any speculation
as to their intent. He looked at the other's two companions, perfect
types of the "heeler," burly and with brutally-cunning features, that
wore now a gloze of satisfaction in the work that was forward. They
were not in uniform--it was not an arrest, then. What did Craig intend
to do? He turned, set his hat on the hall table and passed into the
sitting-room. Craig followed him. Harry now saw that he carried a
compact bundle under his arm. He snapped the cord and disclosed a
costume--jacket and trousers of black and yellow-grey stripes and a
flat, peaked cap of dingy canvas. Around one arm of the jacket was a
leathern band which bore a metal number--239!
"Put them on," commanded Craig shortly. "Over what you are wearing.
They'll be large enough."
A painful mist was before Harry's eyes. He understood. Craig meant to
give him up stamped with the old felon character, clothed in the
unmistakable livery of the convict! Well, if not to-night, to-morrow.
What did it matter?
As he drew on the loathsome garments, buttoning the jacket close up to
his chin, their very touch seemed to cling insupportably to his flesh.
The smell of the coarse fulled cloth in his nostrils gave him a qualm
as of actual physical sickness, and the feel of the canvas cap across
his forehead burned it like a brand.
Craig had taken from his pocket a black cloth mask. "Now this," he
said. "I believe you wore one in your last burglary," he added with
cold malevolence. "I am disposed to miss no realistic touch, believe
me."
Harry put on the mask, whose lower hem fell below his beard. Through
its eye-holes he looked evenly at the sneering, implacable face
opposite. A peculiar apathy had come to him. The wide
humiliation--even the cheap and ghastly sensationalism of the mask did
not touch him. Like the hapless voyageur caught in the rapids above
the great falls, he was watching the nearing brink with a kind of
fascination and with the roar of the cataract in his ears.
One of the men had opened a window to peer down into the street. "All
clear," he announced briefly, and Craig went to the hall and opened the
door.
A monster limousine with curtains drawn waited at the curb, and on the
front seat sat a figure at whose pallid face and red-rimmed eyes Harry
gazed without a start but with a strange sensation of fitness. Here
indeed was the real thief who had shot Craig, but leagued now with his
enemy to his undoing!
Sitting in the dark interior, as the car sped along with its silent
company, Harry remembered another ride of two years before, when he had
flung through the night flying from his own conscience, incarnate in
the figure that now rode beside the chauffeur. Was he never to lay
that old ghost? He noted dully that the streets were jostling with
eager throngs which made compact eddies here and there before some
newspaper bulletin-board or flaring club-window which displayed the
reports of the voting, as, township by township, county by county, the
tally came in. On one the legend was being posted, "_Sevier Leads_,"
and a muffled cheer was wafted after. He shut his eyes. Almost he
could have thought himself in the grip of some _outre_, high-coloured
dream--but he knew that it was no dream.
The limousine slowed and stopped. Harry turned his head as the door
opened; they were at the gate of Midfields.
As they neared the upper end of the drive, a man rose from the steps
and came toward them. It was Lawrence Treadwell. He started as if he
had been stung at sight of the masked and striped figure between its
stolid escort. He turned on Craig, his eyes blazing with amazement and
anger.
"My God!" he cried. "You haven't dared--but this is infamous. It's an
outrage! You--"
"Keep your place!" ground Craig. "I tell you I know what I'm doing!"
"It's my private opinion you're as crazy as a March hare," retorted the
other, "but if you _are_ right, I'll have nothing to do with it, do you
understand? Nothing! I don't care _what_ your damned evidence is!"
Craig turned his back on him and led the way up the steps, and after an
instant's hesitation Treadwell followed. Through an open window Harry
glimpsed the interior of the east room, dismantled now for the
evening's strenuous occupation, where several masculine figures were
grouped about a table, excitedly working over charts, and he could hear
the irritant buzz of the telephone as it signalled the bulletins that
were beginning now to pour into the busy hotel suite at the other end
of the wire. Craig did not ring at the big door but led the way along
the porch to a French-window, of the library, which stood ajar. He
peered into it, then with an exclamation of satisfaction motioned the
two attendants back, said a low word to Paddy the Brick at his heels,
and flung the window open.
Sevier entered, Craig and his stool-pigeon next. Treadwell followed
and drew the window to behind him.