“Are y-y-y-you s-s-s-sure?” she moaned. Then grabbing him tighter. “But you must not leave me. In case the dog should go up that tree you must attack it with your cane.”
“I promise,” panted Barnes, “if you will only release your grip on my arm. Your finger nails are tearing the flesh.”
“I w-w-w-will not hold you so tight,” she consented, “but I must hold on to you till somebody comes. Oh, look at that brute. He is biting the tree. He–––”
But the sudden clangor of a patrol wagon and the hammering of steel-shod hoofs on the cobbles caused the owner of Zaza both to cease her shrill lamentations and let go of Whitney Barnes’s arm.
The patrol wagon was rolling down behind them at a furious pace while its gong rent the stillness of the night as a warning to all crooks and criminals to beware and to scurry to shelter. It is the New York brass band method of thief hunting and if that patrol 227 wagon gong hadn’t broken before the vehicle had crossed Madison avenue the destinies of several prominent personages might have been seriously hampered in their headlong fling.
That gong kept blaring its clang of warning long enough to frighten off the dog and restore Whitney Barnes to freedom, and once released from the bruising grip of that distraught little woman he turned his back upon Zaza’s fate and ran––he ran so long as he considered it feasible to maintain the integrity of his trousers. That is, he ran not quite a block, then dropped back to his heel and toe exercise and swiftly ate up the distance that separated him from Travers Gladwin’s home.