BY MEANS OF THE FIRE ESCAPE
Kirby Lane stood with fascinated eyes looking down at the glove,
muscles and brain alike paralyzed. The receiver was in his hand, close
to his ear.
A voice from the other end of the wire drifted to him. "Number,
please."
Automatically he hung the receiver on the hook. Dazed though he was,
the rough rider knew that the police were the last people in the world
he wanted to see just now.
All his life he had lived the adventure of the outdoors. For twelve
months he had served at the front, part of the time with the forces in
the Argonne. He had ridden stampedes and fought through blizzards. He
had tamed the worst outlaw horses the West could produce. But he had
never been so shock-shaken as he was now. A fact impossibly but
dreadfully true confronted him. Wild Rose had been alone with his
uncle in these rooms, had listened with breathless horror while Kirby
climbed the stairs, had been trapped by his arrival, and had fought
like a wolf to make her escape. He remembered the wild cry of her
outraged heart, "Nothing's too bad for a man like that."
Lane was sick with fear. It ran through him and sapped his supple
strength like an illness. It was not possible that Rose could have
done this in her right mind. But he had heard a doctor say once that
under stress of great emotion people sometimes went momentarily insane.
His friend had been greatly wrought up from anxiety, pain, fever, and
lack of sleep.
In replacing the telephone he had accidentally pushed aside a book.
Beneath it was a slip of paper on which had been penciled a note. He
read it, without any interest.
Mr. Hull he come see you. He sorry you not here. He say maybe perhaps
make honorable call some other time.
S. HORIKAWA
An electric bell buzzed through the apartment. The sound of it
startled Kirby as though it had been the warning of a rattlesnake close
to his head. Some one was at the outer door ringing for admission. It
would never do for him to be caught here.
He had been trained to swift thought reactions. Quickly but
noiselessly he stepped to the door and released the catch of the Yale
lock so that it would not open from the outside without a key. He
switched off the light and passed through the living-room into the
bedchamber. His whole desire now was to be gone from the building as
soon as possible. The bedroom also he darkened before he stepped to
the window and crept through it to the platform of the fire escape.
The glove was still in his hand. He thrust it into his pocket as he
began the descent. The iron ladder ran down the building to the alley.
It ended ten feet above the ground. Kirby lowered himself and dropped.
He turned to the right down the alley toward Glenarm Street.
A man was standing at the comer of the alley trying to light a cigar.
He was a reporter on the "Times," just returning from the Press Club
where he had been playing in a pool tournament.
He stopped Lane. "Can you lend me a match, friend?"
The cattleman handed him three or four and started to go.
"Just a mo'," the newspaper-man said, striking a light. "Do you
always"--puff, puff--"leave your rooms"--puff, puff, puff--"by the fire
escape?"
Kirby looked at him in silence, thinking furiously. He had been
caught, after all. There were witnesses to prove he had gone up to his
uncle's rooms. Here was another to testify he had left by the fire
escape. The best he could say was that he was very unlucky.
"Never mind, friend," the newspaper-man went On. "You don't look like
a second-story worker to yours truly." He broke into a little amused
chuckle. "I reckon friend husband, who never comes home till Saturday
night, happened around unexpectedly and the fire escape looked good to
you. Am I right?"
The Wyoming man managed a grin. It was not a mirthful one, but it
served.
"You're a wizard," he said admiringly.
The reporter had met a bootlegger earlier in the evening and had two or
three drinks. He was mellow. "Oh, I'm wise," he said with a wink.
"Chuck Ellis isn't anybody's fool. Beat it, Lothario, while the
beating's good." The last sentence and the gesture that accompanied
the words were humorous exaggerations of old-time melodrama.
Lane took his advice without delay.