“I’ll be back in a minute,” cried Barrows. “See that the coast is clear. We’re safe enough yet.”
What Barrows had to do in the vaultroom did not take him more than two minutes. When he returned, Bascom was still looking in fright up and down the street. But not a soul was in sight. The peace that reigned all over the town was complete. There was no one to interfere with them. Barrows breathed a great sigh of relief.
“We can still make some trouble,” he said. “Here—give me a hand. We’ve got to get this hulk down to the cellar. It’s summer, and they’re not using the heating plant. We may still be able to stall them a while. They won’t find him down there right away.”
Bascom grumbled, but he could see the wisdom of the idea. The longer their start, the greater their chance of escape would be. And, with the collapse of their scheme, Bascom had become completely subservient to Barrows. He was a genius in certain ways, but without Barrows to direct him, he was worthless. Even now he did not fathom the new plan that Barrows had conceived on the spur of the moment.
They threw the watchman, still unconscious, into a dark part of the cellar, and, regardless of the suffering they were imposing on him, gagged him again. Then, convinced that they had done all they could, after another careful scrutiny of the street, they emerged into the soft summer night, and made their way slowly to the station.
Down in the freight yards there was some sign of human activity—the first they had seen since they left the bank.
“I’m glad this isn’t New York,” said Barrows, with a shiver. “Up here folks go to bed early, and stay there till the alarm clock starts ringing in the morning. Good thing for us. Not even a cop in sight.”
A freight train was pulling out as they slipped, unobserved, through the tangle of box cars. There would be no passenger train for hours, as they knew, and this freight was a Heaven-sent opportunity that they were not slow to seize. They swung aboard, and soon they were traveling fast, on tracks cleared of passenger traffic, bound for New York and freedom.
Barrows and his fellow villain, dirty, unshaven, needing clean clothes and a bath, dropped off their freight train in the Harlem River yards soon after seven o’clock. The big city was astir, and going about its business. No one had a word or a serious thought for the two tramps, as they appeared to be. A railroad detective looked at them as they neared the street, but decided that they were game too small for his notice.
Barrows had a flat far downtown that served as a nest for him. Thither he took Bascom. The wireless man slept, but Barrows still had work to do—work that took him to the long-distance telephone.