"Wasn"t that the numba of the lady"s cab--two-thirty?"
"Good G.o.d!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed P. Sybarite, jumping up.
"What"s. .h.i.t you?"
"I"m going!" the little man announced fiercely.
"Your time allowance ain"t expired by several minutes--"
"To h.e.l.l with my time allowance! Try to keep me, if you like!"
P. Sybarite strode excitedly to the door and jerked it open. The detective followed him, puffing philosophically.
There was no one in sight in the hall.
"Looks like you got a fine show for a clean getaway," he observed cheerfully between his teeth. "Your friend"s beaten it, the boss has ducked the responsibility, and you got _me_ scared to death.
Besides--d.a.m.n "f I"m going to be the goat that saddles this hash-hut with a suit for damages."
His concluding words were addressed to the horizontal folds of the inverness that streamed from the shoulders of P. Sybarite as he bolted unhindered through the Fifth Avenue doorway.
XIX
NEMESIS
"Dolt!... Blockhead!... Imbecile!... Idiot!... Numskull!... a.s.s!...
Simpleton!... Loon!..."
The chill air of early morning wiped the blistering epithets from his lips as he fled like a madman down Fifth Avenue, at every stride wringing from the depths of an embittered bosom new and more virulent terms of vituperation with which to characterize his infatuated stupidity--and finding one and all far too mild. In simple truth, the King"s English lacked invective poisonous enough to do justice to his self-contempt.
Deliberately had he permitted himself to be duped, circ.u.mvented, over-reached. He had held in his hand a tangible clue to that mystery which had so perplexed him--and had allowed it to be filched away before he could recognise it and shape his course accordingly.
Why had he never for an instant dreamed that the term "_two-thirty_"
could indicate anything but the hour of some otherwise undesignated appointment? Of course it had signified the number of Marian"s carriage-check, "230": _two hundred and thirty_, rolling off the modern tongue, stripped to essentials--thanks to the telephone"s abbreviated influence--as, simply, "_two-thirty_"!
And he had held that check in his hand, had memorised its number and repeated it to Marian, had heard it bawled by the carriage porter, had shouted it himself in reply: never for an instant thinking to connect it with the elder Shaynon"s parting admonition to the gang leader!
If he had ere this entertained any doubts whatever of the ugly grounds for his fears they were now resolved by recognition of Bayard"s clumsy ruse to keep him both out of the cab and out of the way, while November and his lieutenants executed their infamous commission....
And all that was now ten--fifteen--twenty minutes old! Marian"s car was gone; and if it had not reached the Plaza, the girl was lost, irrevocably lost to the frantic little man with the twinkling red heels and scarlet breeches, sprinting so wildly down Fifth Avenue in the dank, weird dusk that ran before the dawn of that April morning.
Fortunately he hadn"t far to run; else he would certainly have been waylaid or overhauled by some policeman of enquiring turn of mind, anxious (in the way of duty) to learn his reason for such extraordinary haste.
As it was, P. Sybarite managed to make his goal in record time without attracting the attention of more than half a dozen wayfarers; all of whom gave him way and went their own with that complete indifference so distinctly Manhattanesque....
He had emerged from the restaurant building to find the street bare of any sort of hirable conveyance and himself in a fret too exacting to consider walking to the Plaza or taking a street-car thither. Nothing less than a taxicab--and that, one with a speed-mad chauffeur--would satisfy his impatient humour.
And indeed, if there were a grain of truth in his suspicions, formless though in a measure they remained, he had not an instant to lose.
But on the way to the Bizarre from Peter Kenny"s rooms, some freak of a mind superficially preoccupied had caused him to remark, on the south side of Forty-third Street, immediately east of Sixth Avenue, a long rank of buildings which an utilitarian age had humbled from their once proud estate of private stables to the lowlier degree of quarters for motor vehicles both public and private.
Of these one building boasted the blazing electric announcement: "_ALL NIGHT GARAGE_."
Into this last P. Sybarite pelted at the top of his speed and pulled up puffing, to stare nervously round a place gloomy, cavernous, and pungent with fragrance of oil, rubber, and gasoline. Here and there lonely electric bulbs made visible somnolent ranks of motor-cars. Out of the shadows behind him, presently, came a voice drawling:
"You certainly do take on like you"d lost a power of trouble."
P. Sybarite whirled round as if stung. The speaker occupied a chair tilted back against the wall, his feet on the rungs, a cigarette smouldering between his lips in open contempt of the regulations of the Fire Department and all other admonitions of ordinary common-sense.
"What can I do for you?" he resumed, nothing about him stirring save eyes that twinkled as they travelled from head to foot of the odd and striking figure P. Sybarite presented as _Beelzebub, Knight Errant_.
"Taxi!" the little man panted vociferously.
The other yawned and stretched. "It can"t be done," he admitted fairly. "They ain"t no such animal on the premises."
With a gesture P. Sybarite singled out the nearest car.
"What"s that?" he demanded angrily.
Shading his eyes, the man examined it with growing wonder which presently found expression: "As I live, it"s an autymobeel!"
"d.a.m.n your sense of humour!" stormed P. Sybarite. "What"s the matter with that car?"
"As man to man--nothing."
"Why can"t I have it?"
"Ten dollars an hour--"
"I"ll take it."
"But you _asked_ for a taxi," grumbled the man, rising to press a b.u.t.ton. Whereupon a bell shrilled somewhere in the dark backwards of the establishment. "Deposit...?" he suggested, turning back.
P. Sybarite disbursed a golden double-eagle; and to the operator who, roused by the bell, presently drifted out of the shadows, gaping and rubbing his eyes, he promised a liberal tip for haste.
In two minutes he was rolling out of the garage, ensconced in the body of a luxurious and high-powered touring machine which he strongly suspected to be somebody"s private car lawlessly farmed out while its owner slept.
The twilight was now stronger, if still dull and as cold as the air it coloured, rendering P. Sybarite grateful for Peter Kenny"s inverness as the car surged spiritedly up the deserted avenue, its disdain for speed regulations ignored by the string of yawning peg-post cops--almost the only human beings in sight.
Town was indeed deep sunk in lethargy at that small hour; the traditional milk-wagon itself seemed to have been caught napping. With one consent residence and shop and sky-sc.r.a.ping hotel blinked apathetically at the flying car; then once more turned and slept. Even the Bizarre had forgotten P. Sybarite--showed at least no sign of recognition as he scurried past.
A curious sense of illusion troubled the little man. The glamour of the night was gone and with it all that had lent semblance of plausibility to his incredible career; daylight forced all back into confused and distorted perspective, like the pageant of some fantastic and disordered dream uncertainly recalled long hours after waking.
As for himself, in his absurd attire and bound upon his ambiguous errand, he was all out of the picture--horribly suggestive of an addled sparrow who had stayed up all night on purpose to cheat some legitimately early bird out of a chimerical first worm....