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.