“Wait until the other police get here,” advised Crawford.
“If the mob is in the temper you describe,” said I, “the less that's done
to irritate it the better. I must go out as if I hadn't a suspicion of
danger.”
The inspector eyed me with an expression that was highly flattering to my
vanity.
“I'll go with you,” said Joe, starting up from his stupor.
“No,” I replied. “You and the other fellows can take the underground route,
if it's necessary.”
“It won't be necessary,” put in the inspector. “As soon as I'm rid of you
and have my additional force, I'll clear the streets.” He went to the door.
“Wait, Mr. Blacklock, until I've had time to get out to my men.”
Perhaps ten seconds after he disappeared, I, without further words, put on
my hat, lit a cigar, shook Joe's wet, trembling hand, left in it my private
keys and the memorandum of the combination of my private vault. Then I
sallied forth.
I had always had a ravenous appetite for excitement, and I had been in
many a tight place; but for the first time there seemed to me to be an
equilibrium between my internal energy and the outside situation. As I
stepped from my street door and glanced about me, I had no feeling of
danger. The whole situation seemed so simple. There stood the electric,
just across the narrow stretch of sidewalk; there were the two hundred
police, under Crawford's orders, scattered everywhere through the crowd,
and good-naturedly jostling and pushing to create distraction. Without
haste, I got into my machine. I calmly met the gaze of those thousands,
quiet as so many barrels of gunpowder before the explosion. The chauffeur
turned the machine.
“Go slow,” I called to him. “You might hurt somebody.”
But he had his orders from the inspector. He suddenly darted ahead at full
speed. The mob scattered in every direction, and we were in Broadway, bound
up town full-tilt, before I or the mob realized what he was about.
I called to him to slow down. He paid not the slightest attention. I leaned
from the window and looked up at him. It was not my chauffeur; it was a man
who had the unmistakable but indescribable marks of the plain-clothes
policeman.
“Where are you going?” I shouted.
“You'll find out when we arrive,” he shouted back, grinning.
I settled myself and waited--what else was there to do? Soon I guessed we
were headed for the pier off which my yacht was anchored. As we dashed on
to it, I saw that it was filled with police, both in uniform and in plain
clothes. I descended. A detective sergeant stepped up to me. “We are here
to help you to your yacht,” he explained. “You wouldn't be safe anywhere in
New York--no more would the place that harbored you.”
He had both common sense and force on his side. I got into the launch. Four
detective sergeants accompanied me and went aboard with me. “Go ahead,”
said one of them to my captain. He looked at me for orders.
“We are in the hands of our guests,” said I. “Let them have their way.”
We steamed down the bay and out to sea.
* * * * *
From Maine to Texas the cry rose and swelled:
“Blacklock is responsible! What does it matter whether he lied or told the
truth? See the results of his crusade! He ought to be pilloried! He ought
to be killed! He is the enemy of the human race. He has almost plunged
the whole civilized world into bankruptcy and civil war.” And they turned
eagerly to the very autocrats who had been oppressing them. “You have the
genius for finance and industry. Save us!”
If you did not know, you could guess how those patriots with the “genius
for finance and industry” responded. When they had done, when their program
was in effect, Langdon, Melville and Updegraff were the three richest men
in the country, and as powerful as Octavius, Antony and Lepidus after
Philippi. They had saddled upon the reorganized finance and industry of the
nation heavier taxes than ever, and a vaster and more expensive and more
luxurious army of their parasites.
The people had risen for financial and industrial freedom; they had paid
its fearful price; then, in senseless panic and terror, they flung it away.
I have read that one of the inscriptions on Apollo's temple at Delphi was,
“Man, the fool of the farce.” Truly, the gods must have created us for
their amusement; and when Olympus palls, they ring up the curtain on some
such screaming comedy as was that. It “makes the fancy chuckle, while the
heart doth ache.”