“What time was she here?”
“Late last night. And she had a light-haired man across the street. If she thought I didn’t see him, she don’t know me.” Then she closed the door and left me to my bath and my reflections.
At five minutes before eight I was at the Incubator, where I found Hotchkiss and McKnight. They were bending over a table, on which lay McKnight’s total armament—a pair of pistols, an elephant gun and an old cavalry saber.
“Draw up a chair and help yourself to pie,” he said, pointing to the arsenal. “This is for the benefit of our friend Hotchkiss here, who says he is a small man and fond of life.”
Hotchkiss, who had been trying to get the wrong end of a cartridge into the barrel of one of the revolvers, straightened himself and mopped his face.
“We have desperate people to handle,” he said pompously, “and we may need desperate means.”
“Hotchkiss is like the small boy whose one ambition was to have people grow ashen and tremble at the mention of his name,” McKnight jibed. But they were serious enough, both of them, under it all, and when they had told me what they planned, I was serious, too.
“You’re compounding a felony,” I remonstrated, when they had explained. “I’m not eager to be locked away, but, by Jove, to offer her the stolen notes in exchange for Sullivan!”
“We haven’t got either of them, you know,” McKnight remonstrated, “and we won’t have, if we don’t start. Come along, Fido,” to Hotchkiss.
The plan was simplicity itself. According to Hotchkiss, Sullivan was to meet Bronson at Mrs. Conway’s apartment, at eight-thirty that night, with the notes. He was to be paid there and the papers destroyed. “But just before that interesting finale,” McKnight ended, “we will walk in, take the notes, grab Sullivan, and give the police a jolt that will put them out of the count.”
I suppose not one of us, slewing around corners in the machine that night, had the faintest doubt that we were on the right track, or that Fate, scurvy enough before, was playing into our hands at last. Little Hotchkiss was in a state of fever; he alternately twitched and examined the revolver, and a fear that the two movements might be synchronous kept me uneasy. He produced and dilated on the scrap of pillow slip from the wreck, and showed me the stiletto, with its point in cotton batting for safekeeping. And in the intervals he implored Richey not to make such fine calculations at the corners.
We were all grave enough and very quiet, however, when we reached the large building where Mrs. Conway had her apartment. McKnight left the power on, in case we might want to make a quick getaway, and Hotchkiss gave a final look at the revolver. I had no weapon. Somehow it all seemed melodramatic to the verge of farce. In the doorway Hotchkiss was a half dozen feet ahead; Richey fell back beside me. He dropped his affectation of gayety, and I thought he looked tired. “Same old Sam, I suppose?” he asked.
“Same, only more of him.”
“I suppose Alison was there? How is she?” he inquired irrelevantly.
“Very well. I did not see her this morning.”
Hotchkiss was waiting near the elevator. McKnight put his hand on my arm. “Now, look here, old man,” he said, “I’ve got two arms and a revolver, and you’ve got one arm and a splint. If Hotchkiss is right, and there is a row, you crawl under a table.”
“The deuce I will!” I declared scornfully.
We crowded out of the elevator at the fourth floor, and found ourselves in a rather theatrical hallway of draperies and armor. It was very quiet; we stood uncertainly after the car had gone, and looked at the two or three doors in sight. They were heavy, covered with metal, and sound proof. From somewhere above came the metallic accuracy of a player-piano, and through the open window we could hear—or feel—the throb of the Cannonball’s engine.
“Well, Sherlock,” McKnight said, “what’s the next move in the game? Is it our jump, or theirs? You brought us here.”
None of us knew just what to do next. No sound of conversation penetrated the heavy doors. We waited uneasily for some minutes, and Hotchkiss looked at his watch. Then he put it to his ear.
“Good gracious!” he exclaimed, his head cocked on one side, “I believe it has stopped. I’m afraid we are late.”
We were late. My watch and Hotchkiss’ agreed at nine o clock, and, with the discovery that our man might have come and gone, our zest in the adventure began to flag. McKnight motioned us away from the door and rang the bell. There was no response, no sound within. He rang it twice, the last time long and vigorously, without result. Then he turned and looked at us.
“I don’t half like this,” he said. “That woman is in; you heard me ask the elevator boy. For two cents I’d—”
I had seen it when he did. The door was ajar about an inch, and a narrow wedge of rose-colored light showed beyond. I pushed the door a little and listened. Then, with both men at my heels, I stepped into the private corridor of the apartment and looked around. It was a square reception hall, with rugs on the floor, a tall mahogany rack for hats, and a couple of chairs. A lantern of rose-colored glass and a desk light over a writing-table across made the room bright and cheerful. It was empty.
None of us was comfortable. The place was full of feminine trifles that made us feel the weakness of our position. Some such instinct made McKnight suggest division.
“We look like an invading army,” he said. “If she’s here alone, we will startle her into a spasm. One of us could take a look around and—”
“What
