He exerted all the strength of his leg, arm, and trunk muscles. The pain from his broken arm was a sickening thing but slowly the leather bands began to tear loose from the rivets that held them. A last mighty exertion and he was free.
Wagner had a private elevator. Buckmaster entered and went to a ground floor. He walked out of the building through a tradesmen's entrance into a dusky alley.
Keeping his good arm in front of his face he staggered around the corner and into a drugstore and reached a phone booth without being observed. He put in a call and crouched in the phone booth for the ten long minutes it took Oliver to come for him.
"Two weeks aren't very long to get you well, Clifford," Oliver said, "but I'm afraid it's all the time we have. I'm sorry."
"You did your best," Buckmaster answered, "At least you've got me pretty well patched up."
"The last reports were that the police have drawn a ring around this district, and that they're closing in."
"Do we have any way out?"
"I hate to have to say this," Oliver said slowly. "But the rest of us can get out—if we don't take you with us."
Buckmaster had expected this. It seemed that he had known from the beginning that he would never live to see the end of this adventure.