Chapter 15

"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.

XXII

TOGETHER

In a daze, P. Sybarite shook and felt himself all over, unable to credit his escape from that rain of bullets.

But he was apparently unharmed.

_Kismet!_...

Then suddenly he quickened to the circumstances: the thing was finished, November stunned and helpless at his feet, November's driver making off, the crowd swarming round, the police an imminent menace.

Now if Marian were in the body of the town-car, as he believed, he must get her out of it and away before the police and detectives could overtake and apprehend them both.

Instant action, inspired audacity, a little luck--and the thing might possibly be accomplished.

His chauffeur was crawling ignominiously out from beneath the touring car--his countenance livid with grime and the pallor of fright. Meeting the eye of his employer, he grinned a sheepish grin.

P. Sybarite seized him by the arm.

"Are you hurt?"

"Not ten cents' worth--much less a thousand dollars! No such luck!"

His mouth to the fellow's ear, P. Sybarite whispered hoarsely and hurriedly:

"Unhook your license number--throw it in the car--get ready to move on the word--lady in that car--kidnapped--I love her--d'you understand?--we must get her away--another thousand in this for you--"

"Gotcha," the man cut in smartly. "And I'm with you to the last act! Go to it, bo'--I like your style!"

Swinging about, P. Sybarite jumped upon the running-board of the maroon-coloured car, wrenched the door open, and stumbled in.

In her evening frock and her cloak of furs, Marian lay huddled in a corner, wrists and ankles alike made fast with heavy twine, her mouth closed tight by a bandanna handkerchief passed round her jaws and knotted at the nape of her neck. Above its folds her face was like snow, but the little man thought to detect in her staring eyes a hint of intelligence, and on this he counted with all his soul.

"Don't scream!" he pleaded as, whipping out a pocket knife, he severed her bonds. "Don't do anything but depend on me. Pretend, if you like, you don't know what's happening--likely you don't at that! No matter. Have faith in me; I'll get you clear of this yet!"

He fancied a softening look in those wide and frightened eyes of a child.

An instant's work loosed her scored and excoriated wrists; in another, the bonds fell from her ankles. Deftly unknotting the bandage that closed her mouth, he asked could she walk. With difficulty, in a husky and painful whisper, but still courageously, she told him yes.

Hopeful, rather than counting on this assurance, he jumped out and offered his hand. She put hers into it (and it was cold as ice), stirred, rose stiffly, tottered to the door, and fell into his arms....

A uniformed patrolman, breaking through the crowd about them, seized P. Sybarite and held him fast.

"What's this? Who's this?" he gabbled incoherently, brandishing a vaguely formidable fist.

"A lady, you fool!" P. Sybarite snapped. "Let go and catch that scoundrel over there--if you're worth your salt."

He waved his free hand broadly in the direction taken by November's driver.

Abruptly and without protest the patrolman released him, butted his way through the crowd, and disappeared.

An arm boldly about Marian's waist, P. Sybarite helped her to the step of the touring car--and blessed that prince among chauffeurs, who was up and ready in his seat!

But now again he must be hindered: a plain-clothes man dropped a heavy hand upon his shoulder and screwed the muzzle of a revolver into P. Sybarite's ear.

"Under arrest!" he blatted wildly. "Carrying fire-arms! Causing a crowd to collect--!"

"All right--all right!" P. Sybarite told him roughly. "I admit it. I'm not resisting, am I? Take that gun out of my ear and help me get this lady into the car before she's trampled and torn to pieces by these staring fools!"

Stupidly enough, the man comprehended some part of his admonishment. Staring blankly from the little man to the girl, he pocketed his weapon and, grasping Marian's arm, assisted her into the touring car.

"Thanks!" cried P. Sybarite, jumping up on the running-board. "You're most amiable, my friend!"

And with the heel of his open hand he struck the man forcibly upon the chest, so that he reeled back, tripped over the hapchance foot of an innocent by-stander, and went sprawling and blaspheming upon his back.

Somebody laughed hysterically.

"Go!" P. Sybarite cried to the chauffeur.

The crowd gave way before the lunge of the car....

They were halfway to Fifth Avenue before pursuit was thought of; had turned the corner before it was fairly started; in five minutes had thrown it off entirely and were running free at a moderate pace up Broadway just above Columbus Circle....

"Where to now, boss?" the chauffeur presently enquired.

P. Sybarite looked enquiringly at his charge. Since her rescue she had neither moved nor spoken--had rested motionless in her corner of the tonneau, eyes closed, body relaxed and listless. But now she roused; unveiled the dear wonder of her eyes of brown; even mustered up the ghost of a smile.

"Wherever you think best," she told him gently.

"The Plaza? You might be bothered there. We may be traced--we're sure to. This only saves us for the day. To-morrow--reporters--all that--perhaps. Perhaps not!... Don't you know somebody out of town to whom you could go for the day? Once across the city line, we're safe for a little."

She nodded: breathed an address in Westchester County....

Some time later P. Sybarite became sensible of an amazing fact. A hand of his rested on the cushioned seat, and in it lay, now warm and wonderfully soft and light, Marian's hand.

He stared incredulously until he had confirmed the substance of this impression; looked up blinking; met the confident, straightforward, and wistful regard of the girl; and blushed to his brows.

The car swept on and on, through the golden hush of that glorious Sunday morning....

XXIII

PERCEVAL UNASHAMED

Toward ten of that same Sunday morning a touring car of majestic mien drew up in front of a boarding-house in Thirty-eighth Street West.

From this alighted a little man of somewhat bedraggled appearance, wearing a somewhat weather-beaten but heartfelt grin.

Ostentatiously (or so it seemed to one solitary and sour-mouthed spectator, disturbed in his perusal of a comic supplement on the brownstone stoop of the boarding-house) he shook hands with the chauffeur, and, speaking guardedly, confirmed some private understanding with him.

Then the car rolled off, and P. Sybarite shuffled meekly in through the gate, crossed the dooryard, and met the outraged glare of George Bross with an apologetic smile and the request:

"If you've got a pack of Sweets about you, George, I can use one in my business."

Without abating his manifestation of entire disapproval, George produced a box of cigarettes, permitted P. Sybarite to select one, and helped himself.

They shared a match, even as brothers might, before honest indignation escaped the grim portals of the shipping clerk's mouth.

"Sa-ay!" he exploded--"looky here: where've you been all night?"

"Ah-h!" P. Sybarite sighed provokingly: "that's a long and tiresome story, George."

With much the air of a transient, he sat him down by George's side.

"A very long and very weary story, George. I don't like to tell it to you, really. We'd be sure to quarrel."

"Why?" George demanded aggressively.

"Because you wouldn't believe me. I don't quite believe it myself, now that all's over, barring a page or two. Your great trouble, George, is that you have no imagination."

"The devil I ain't!"

"Perfectly right: you haven't. If you point with pride to that wild flight of fancy which identified 'Molly Lessing' with Marian Blessington, George, your position is (as you yourself would say) untenable. It wasn't imagination: it was fact."

"No!" George ejaculated. "Is that right? What'd I tell you?"

"Word of honour! But it's a secret, as yet--from everybody except you and Violet; and even you we wouldn't tell had you not earned the right to know by guessing and making me semi-credulous--enough to start something--several somethings, in fact."

"G'wan!" George coaxed. "Feed it to me: I'll eat it right outa your hand. Whatcha been doin' with yourself all night, P.S.?"

"I've been Day of Days-ing myself, George."

"Ah, can the kiddin', P.S. Come through! Whadja do?"

"Broke every Commandment in the Decalogue, George, barring one or two of the more indelicate ones; kicked the laws of chance and probability into a cocked hat; fractured most of the Municipal Ordinances--and--let me see--oh, yes!--dislocated the Long Arm of Coincidence so badly that all of its subsequent performances are going to seem stiff and lacking in that air of spontaneity without which--"

"My Gawd!" George despaired--"he's off again on that hardy annual talkalogue of his!... Lis'n, P.S.--"

"Call me Perceval," P. Sybarite suggested pleasantly.

"_Wh-at!_"

"Let it be Perceval hereafter, George--always. I grant you free permission."

"But I thought you said--"

"So I did--a few hours ago. Now I--well, I rather like it. It makes all the difference who calls you that sort of name first, and what her voice is like."

"One of us," George protested with profound conviction, "is plumb loony in the head!"

"It's me," said P. Sybarite humbly: "I admit it.... And the worst of it is--I like it! So would you if you'd been through a Day of Days."

George let that pass; for the moment he was otherwise engaged in vain speculation as to the appearance of a phenomenon rather rare in the calendar of that West Thirty-eighth Street boarding-house.

A Western Union boy, weary with the weariness of not less than forty summers, was shuffling in at the gate.

"Sa-ay!" he called with the asperity of ingrained ennui--"either of youse guys know a guy named Perceval Sybarite 't lives here?"

Silently P. Sybarite held out his hand, took the greasy little book in its black oil-cloth binding, scrawled his signature in the proper blank, and received the message in its sealed yellow envelope.

"Wait," he commanded calmly, eyeing Western Union with suspicion.