Heartsick, self-sick to boot, he essayed to suggest that she consult
Colonel Stanistreet, but lacking so much effrontery, stammered and fell
silent.
Perhaps misinterpreting, she cried in quick contrition: "I am forgetting!
Forgive me. I should have said: what are you to do?"
He whipped his wits together.
"Look down, turn your face aside, smile.... I have a plan, a desperate
remedy, but the best I can contrive. When next the lift comes up, we must
try to be near it. There is one row of tables which we must break through
by main force. Leave that to me, follow as I clear a way, go straight into
the lift. If anything happens, run down the stairway on the left. The
ground floor is two flights below. If I am any way detained, don't stop--go
on, get your wraps, take the first taxi you see, return directly to the
Knickerbocker. I will telephone you later."
"If you live," she breathed.
"Never fear for me...."
"But if I do? Do you imagine I could rest if I thought you had sacrificed
yourself for me?"
"You must not think that. I am far too selfish--"
"That is not so. And I refuse positively to do as you wish unless you tell
me how I may communicate with you."
Resigned to humour her, he recited his address and the number of the house
telephone, and when she had memorized both by iteration, resumed:
"Once outside, if anybody tries to hinder you, don't let them intimidate
you into keeping quiet, but scream, scream at the top of your lungs. These
beasts abominate a screaming woman, or any other undue noise. Not only will
that frighten them off, but it will fetch the nearest policeman."
The music ceased. She stood flushed, smiling, adorably pretty, eyes
star-like for him alone.
"We are not far from the lift now," she said just audibly.
"But the door is shut. Hush. Here comes the encore. Once more around...."
They drifted again into that witching maze of melody and movement made one.
"You are silent," she said, after a little. "Why?"
Lanyard answered with a warning pressure on her hand.
The elevator was stationary at the floor, its door wide, the maître d'hôtel
engaged in a far quarter of the room, while those four formidable guardians
of the exit were gossiping with animation over their glasses.
"Steady. Now is our time."
Abruptly they stopped. A couple that had been following them avoided
collision by a close margin. Over his partner's head the man scowled
portentously--and dissipated his display of temper on Lanyard's indifferent
back.
Upon those guests who sat between the dancing floor and elevator, Lanyard
wasted no consideration. Pushing roughly between two adjoining tables, he
lifted one chair with its astonished occupant bodily out of the way, then
turned, swung an arm round the girl's waist, all but threw her through the
lane he had created, followed without an instant's pause.
It was all so quickly accomplished that the girl was in the car before
another person in the room appreciated what was happening. And Lanyard, in
the act of slamming the door shut without heed for the protesting operator,
saw only a room full of amazed faces with gaping mouths and rounded
eyes--and one man of the four at the near-by table in the act of rising
uncertainly, with a stupefied look.
Elbowing the boy aside, he seized the operating lever and thrust it to the
notch labelled "Descend." An instant of pause followed: like its attendant
the elevator seemed stalled in inertia of stupefaction.
Beyond the door somebody loosed an infuriated screech. Angry hands
drummed on the glass panel. With a premonitory shudder the car started
spasmodically, moved downward at first gently, then with greater speed,
coming to an abrupt stop at the street level with a shock that all but
threw its passengers from their feet.
Up the shaft that senseless punishment of the panel continued. Some other
intelligence conceived the notion for ringing for the car to return: its
annunciator buzzed stridently, continuously.
Unlatching the lower door, Lanyard threw it back, stepped out, finding the
lobby deserted but for a simpering group of coat-room girls, to one of whom
he flipped a silver dollar.
"Find this lady's wraps--be quick!"
Deftly catching the coin, the girl snatched the check from Cecelia Brooke,
and darted into the women's dressing room.
Throughout a wait of agonising suspense, the elevator boy remained cowering
in a corner of the car, staring at Lanyard as at some shape of terror,
while the ignored buzzer droned without cessation to persistent pressure
from above.
Out of the dark entrance to the lower dining room the bearded diplomatist
popped with the distracted look of a jack-in-the-box about to be ravished
of its young.
"Monsieur is not leaving?" he expostulated shrilly, darting forward.
Lanyard stopped him with a look whose menace was like a kick.
"I am seeing this lady to her cab," he said in a cold and level voice.
The coat-room girl emerged from her lair with an armful of wraps and furs.
Again the bearded one made as if to block the doorway.
"But, monsieur--mademoiselle--!"
Lanyard caught the fellow's arm and sent him spinning like a top.
"Out of the way, you rat!" he snapped; then to the girl: "Be quick!"
As she shouldered into a compartment of the revolving door incoherent yells
began to echo down the staircase well. At length it had occurred to those
above to utilize that means of descent.
Wedged in the wheeling door, a final glimpse of the lobby showed Lanyard
the startled, putty-like mask of the maître d'hôtel at the head of
the stairway with, beyond him, the head of one who, though in shadow,
uncommonly resembled Ekstrom--but Ekstrom as he was in the old days,
without his beard.
That picture passed like a flash on a cinema screen.
They were on the sidewalk, and the girl was running toward a taxicab, the
only vehicle of its sort in sight, at the curb just above the entrance.
Coatless and bareheaded, Lanyard swung to face the door porter, a towering,
brawny animal in livery, self-confident and something more than keen to
interfere; but his mouth, opening to utter some sort of protest, shut
suddenly without articulation when Lanyard displayed for his benefit a .22
Colt's automatic. And he fell back smartly.
Jerking open the cab door, the girl stumbled into the far corner of the
seat. The motor was churning in promising fashion, the chauffeur settling
into place at the wheel. Into his hand Lanyard thrust a ten-dollar bill.
"The Knickerbocker," he ordered. "Stop for nobody. If followed steer for
the nearest policeman. There'll be no change."
He closed the door sharply, leaned over it, dropped the little pistol into
the girl's lap.
"Chances are you won't want that--but you may."
She bent forward quickly, eyes darkly lustrous with alarm, and placed a
hand upon his arm.
"But you?"
"It is I whom they want, not you. I won't subject you to the hazard of my
company."
Gently Lanyard lifted the hand from his sleeve, brushed it gallantly with
his lips, released it.
"Good-night!" he laughed, then stepped back, waved a hand to the
chauffeur--"Go!"
The taxicab shot away like a racing hound unleashed. With a sigh of relief
Lanyard gave himself wholly to the question of his own salvation.
The rank of waiting motor-cars offered no hope: all but one were private
town cars and limousines, operated by liveried drivers. A solitary roadster
at the head of the line tempted and was rejected; even though it had no
guardian chauffeur, something of which he could not be sure, he would
be overhauled before he could start the motor and get the knack of its
gear-shift mechanism. Even now Au Printemps was in frantic eruption, its
doors ejecting violently a man at each wild revolution.
Down Broadway an omnibus of the Fifth Avenue line lumbered, at no less
speed than twenty miles an hour, without passengers and sporting an
illuminated "Special" sign above the driver's seat.
Dashing out into the roadway, Lanyard launched himself at the narrow
platform of the unwieldy vehicle and, in spite of a yell of warning from
the guard, landed safely on the step and turned to repel boarders.
But his manoeuvre had been executed too swiftly and unexpectedly. The group
before Au Printemps huddled together in ludicrous inaction, as if stunned.
Then one raged through it, plying vicious elbows. As he paused against the
light Lanyard identified unmistakably the silhouette of Ekstrom.
So that one had, after all, escaped the net of his own treachery!
The 'bus guard was shaking Lanyard's arm with an ungentle hand.
"Here, now, you got no business boardin' a Special."
From his pocket Lanyard whipped the first bank-note his fingers
encountered.
"Divide that with the chauffeur," he said crisply--"tell him to drive like
the devil. It's life or death with me!"
The protruding eyeballs of the guard bore witness to the magnitude of the
bribe.
"You're on!" he breathed hoarsely, and ran forward through the body of the
conveyance to advise the driver.
Swarming up the curved stairway to the roof, Lanyard dropped into the rear
seat, looking back.
The group round the doorway was recovering from its stupefaction. Three
struck off from it toward the line of waiting cars. Of these the foremost
was Ekstrom.
Simultaneously the 'bus, lumbering drunkenly, lurched into Columbus Circle,
and the roadster left the curb carrying in addition to the driver two
passengers--Ekstrom on the running-board.
Tardily Lanyard repented of that impulse which had moved him to bestow his
one weapon upon Cecelia Brooke.
The night air had a biting edge. A chill rain had begun to drizzle down in
minute globules of mist, which both lent each street light its individual
nimbus of gold and dulled deceitfully the burnished asphaltum, rendering
its surface greasy and treacherous. More than once Lanyard feared lest
the 'bus skid and overturn; and before the old red brick building between
Broadway and Eighth Avenue shut out the western sector of the Circle, he
saw the roadster, driven insanely, shoot crabwise toward the curb, than
answer desperate work at the wheel and whirl madly, executing a volte-face
so violent that Ekstrom's hold was broken and he was hurled a dozen feet
away. And Lanyard's chances were measurably advanced by the delay required
in order to pick up the sprawling one, start the engine anew, and turn more
cautiously to resume the pursuit.
Striking diagonally across Broadway the 'bus swung into Fifty-seventh
Street at the moment when the roadster turned the corner of Columbus
Circle.
The head of the guard lifted above the edge of the roof. Clinging to the
supports of the stairway, he addressed Lanyard in accents of blended
suspicion and respect.
"Lis'n, boss: is this all right, on the level, now?"
"Absolutely, unless that racing-car catches up with us, in which case
you'll have a dead man--myself--on your hands."
"Well ... we don't wanna lose our jobs, that's all."
"You won't unless I lose my life."
"Anything you'd like me to do?"
"Go down, wait on the platform, if anybody attempts to get aboard kick him
in the act."
"Sure I will!"
The guard disappeared.
Wallowing like a barge in a strong seaway, the omnibus crossed Seventh
Avenue and sped downhill toward Sixth with dangerous momentum. Shortly,
however, this began to be modified by the brakes, a precaution against
mishap which even the fugitive must approve. Ahead loomed the gaunt
structure of the Sixth Avenue "L," bridging the roadway at so low an
elevation as to afford the omnibus little more than clear headroom. Once
beneath it a single bounce up from the surface-car tracks must mean a
wreck.
But the pursuit was less than half a block astern and gaining swiftly, even
as the speed of the omnibus was growing less and desperately less.
At what seemed little better than a snail's pace it began to pass beneath
the span of the Elevated.
Like a racing thoroughbred the roadster swept up alongside, motor chanting
triumphantly, running-board level with the platform step.
Ekstrom, poised to leap aboard, hesitated; a pistol in his hand exploded; a
shattered window fell crashing.
There was a yell from the guard, not of pain but of fright. Apparently he
executed a von Hindenburg retreat. Without more opposition Ekstrom gained
the platform.
In the same breath Lanyard stood up. The lowermost girder of the "L" was
immediately overhead. He grasped it, doubled his legs beneath him, swung
clear. The omnibus shot from under him, the roadster convoying.
Drawing himself up, he seized a round iron upright of guard-rail and heaved
his body in over the edge of the platform round the switching-tower, which
was at this hour dark and untenanted.
In the street below a police whistle shrieked, and a fusillade of pistol
shots woke scandalised echoes.
Bending almost double Lanyard moved rapidly northward on the footway beside
the western tracks, and so gained the old station on the west side of
Fifty-eighth Street, for years dedicated to the uses of desuetude. Through
this he crept, then down the stairs, encountering at the lower landing an
iron gate which obliged him to climb over and jump.
Not a soul paid the least attention to this matter of a gentleman in
evening dress without hat or top coat dropping from the stairway of a
disused elevated station at two o'clock in the morning.
In New York anything can happen, and most things do, without stirring up
meddlesome impulses in innocent bystanders.