"Stop the car! Stop the car!" called out Wilkinson frantically. "Look
at that murderous gang down there! Go back--go back! Turn the other
way--turn the car around, do you hear?"
Morehead held up his hand.
"It's all right, Francois. Go ahead!" he commanded. "Go right ahead and
nobody will notice us. We'll go in by the rear entrance; most of the
crowd are in front. There are four automobiles there already; they've
probably mistaken others for us. The crowd don't know you, Wilkinson,
from Adam--wouldn't know you from your pictures in the papers. Besides,
there's no danger; there never is, with a New York crowd. Drive on!"
The chauffeur obeyed him.
Now they were on the outskirts of the crowd, and had begun slowly to
eat their way through it when, all of a sudden, somebody set up a cry
of "Wilkinson!" But quick as a flash, Morehead leaned over the side of
the car and shouted to the nearest of the mob:
"Has Wilkinson arrived?"
The answer was "No!" And at once word passed quickly that the car did
not contain Wilkinson, but somebody else. Nevertheless, to Wilkinson's
fearful eye there was a movement here, there, everywhere, as if the
crowd, or some few people in it, had realised the truth.
Presently Morehead caught sight of two officers standing on the steps.
To these the Colonel waved an unseen signal, while on the sidewalk
Wilkinson's faithful Pinkertons waited, alert, quiet, their hands in
their coat pockets.
And so it happened that the Mastodon managed to draw up at the curb
before a spacious door, the two officers moving out to meet it, the
Pinkertons flanking it on the other side.
"All we have to do, you see," said Colonel Morehead, "is to make a dash
behind these uniforms, and a second more and we're inside. The crowd
will be fooled."
But the crowd was not fooled. For suddenly there rose upon the air a
mighty cry as if from a thousand throats:
"Wilkinson! Wilkinson! He's here! He's here! This way! This way!
There's Wilkinson!" A moment's silence, and then more cries of: "Thief!
Forger! Perjurer! My money--give me back my money!... Arg-gh
Wilkinson ...!"
"Now, Wilkinson," whispered the Colonel, "keep a stiff upper lip; don't
turn a hair. Just get out of the car and walk right through. I know
crowds--nothing will happen--nothing. Now...."
Colonel Morehead was a man whose orders were generally obeyed.
Consequently, in a situation like this, his reassuring words carried
great weight, and the men with him in the car, immediately following
his example, jumped to their feet. For an instant they stood, exposed
to merciless hootings, preparing to alight; and in that very instant
there suddenly rang out a revolver shot, and a puff of smoke floated
over the densest part of the crowd, while, almost simultaneously, one
of the four men in the car, clutching first at the air and then at
his throat, plunged head foremost into the street below. Just how it
happened the police never knew, but all remembered hearing a voice cry
out: "Wilkinson!"
For a moment that seemed hours, the trained Pinkertons failed to rise
to the emergency, but then fairly leaping into the machine and dragging
the men across the sidewalk, they thrust them into the safety within
the hall and closed the doors on them. Out again and into the street
dashed the Pinkertons with the two uniformed officers, and there they
picked up the body which was lying hideously huddled between the curb
and the machine. As for Francois the chauffeur, he had fled.
"Get back there! Get back there!" cried the officers. "If you don't,
we'll pull our clubs. Get back! Will you get back ...!"
But the frenzied crowd would not budge. So the officers, with their
backs to the machine, plied their clubs viciously about them, but even
then the mob persisted.
"It served him right! He got what was coming to him!" came from all
sides.
"Get back!" cried the officers, standing guard over the body on the
sidewalk. Gently one of them felt of the dead man, opening his clothing
at the neck, felt of his heart. Now the officers shook their heads.
A man came running through the crowd. "I'm a doctor," he told them;
"anything I can do?" He, too, applied the tests. Presently he finished
and rose to his feet, and announced:
"He's dead--dead as a door nail."
The policemen carried the body into the huge building and laid it down
upon the stones.
"Great heavens! It's little Pallister."
The exclamation fell from the lips of Peter V. Wilkinson as he
clutched at Colonel Morehead for support. A moment later, wiping the
perspiration from his face, he added:
"And they meant that for me!"