“I couldn’t say for certain, sir. I didn’t notice particularly. But it’s my impression that Miss Sibella entered the car first as though she intended to drive—”
“Come, Markham!” Vance started for the door. “I don’t like this at all. There’s a mad idea in my head. … Hurry, man! If something devilish should happen …”
We had reached the car, and Vance sprang to the wheel. Heath and Markham, in a daze of incomprehension but swept along by the other’s ominous insistence, took their places in the tonneau; and I sat beside the driver’s seat.
“We’re going to break all the traffic and speed regulations, Sergeant,” Vance announced, as he maneuvered the car in the narrow street; “so have your badge and credentials handy. I may be taking you chaps on a wild-goose chase, but we’ve got to risk it.”
We darted toward First Avenue, cut the corner short, and turned uptown. At 59th Street we swung west and went toward Columbus Circle. A surface car held us up at Lexington Avenue; and at Fifth Avenue we were stopped by a traffic officer. But Heath showed his card and spoke a few words, and we struck across Central Park. Swinging perilously round the curves of the driveways, we came out into 81st Street and headed for Riverside Drive. There was less congestion here, and we made between forty and fifty miles an hour all the way to Dyckman Street.
It was a nerve-racking ordeal, for not only had the shadows of evening fallen, but the streets were slippery in places where the melted snow had frozen in large sheets along the sloping sides of the Drive. Vance, however, was an excellent driver. For two years he had driven the same car, and he understood thoroughly how to handle it. Once we skidded drunkenly, but he managed to right the traction before the rear wheels came in contact with the high curbing. He kept the siren horn screeching constantly, and other cars drew away from us, giving us a fairly clear road.
At several street intersections we had to slow down; and twice we were halted by traffic officers, but were permitted to proceed the moment the occupants of the tonneau were recognized. On North Broadway we were forced to the curb by a motorcycle policeman, who showered us with a stream of picturesque abuse. But when Heath had cut him short with still more colorful vituperation, and he had made out Markham’s features in the shadows, he became ludicrously humble, and acted as an advance-guard for us all the way to Yonkers, clearing the road and holding up traffic at every cross-street.
At the railroad tracks near Yonkers Ferry we were obliged to wait several minutes for the shunting of some freight-cars, and Markham took this opportunity of venting his emotions.
“I presume you have a good reason for this insane ride, Vance,” he said angrily. “But since I’m taking my life in my hands by accompanying you, I’d like to know what your objective is.”
“There’s no time now for explanations,” Vance replied brusquely. “Either I’m on a fool’s errand, or there’s an abominable tragedy ahead of us.” His face was set and white, and he looked anxiously at his watch. “We’re twenty minutes ahead of the usual running time from the Plaza to Yonkers. Furthermore, we’re taking the direct route to our destination—another ten minutes’ saving. If the thing I fear is scheduled for tonight, the other car will go by the Spuyten Duyvil Road and through the back lanes along the river—”
At this moment the crossing-bars were lifted, and our car jerked forward, picking up speed with breathless rapidity.
Vance’s words had set a train of thought going in my mind. The Spuyten Duyvil Road—the back lanes along the river. … Suddenly there flashed on my brain a memory of that other ride we had taken weeks before with Sibella and Ada and Von Blon; and a sense of something inimical and indescribably horrifying took possession of me. I tried to recall the details of that ride—how we had turned off the main road at Dyckman Street, skirted the palisades through old wooded estates, traversed private hedge-lined roadways, entered Yonkers from the Riverdale Road, turned again from the main highway past the Ardsley Country Club, taken the little-used road along the river toward Tarrytown, and stopped on the high cliff to get a panoramic view of the Hudson. … That cliff overlooking the waters of the river!—Ah, now I remembered Sibella’s cruel jest—her supposedly satirical suggestion of how a perfect murder might be committed there. And on the instant of that recollection I knew where Vance was heading—I understood the thing he feared! He believed that another car was also heading for that lonely precipice beyond Ardsley—a car that had nearly half an hour start. …
We were now below the Longue Vue hill, and a few moments later we swung into the Hudson Road. At Dobbs Ferry another officer stepped in our path and waved frantically; but Heath, leaning over the running-board, shouted some unintelligible words, and Vance, without slackening speed, skirted the officer and plunged ahead toward Ardsley.
Ever since we had passed Yonkers, Vance had been inspecting every large car along the way. He was, I knew, looking for Von Blon’s low-hung yellow Daimler. But there had been no sign of it, and, as he threw on the brakes preparatory to turning into the narrow road by the Country Club golf-links, I heard him mutter half aloud:
“God help us if we’re too late!”28
We made the turn at the Ardsley station at such a rate of speed that I held my breath for fear we would upset; and I had to grip the seat with both hands to keep my balance as we jolted over the rough road along the river level. We took the hill before us in high gear, and climbed swiftly to the dirt roadway along the edge of the bluff beyond.
Scarcely had we rounded the hill’s crest when an exclamation broke from Vance, and
