“Was a guard. I couldn’t explain that.... He wanted me to marry him—to go with him without marriage—and father tried to force me.... He was trying to force me to-day.... And he died.” Suddenly she clutched his arm. “Oh,” she cried, “be quick! Do something!... They were warned!... I did it. I called Cantor Adolf von Arnheim. I had to do something to protect myself....”
“What did he say? Was it true?”
“It was true. It changed him. He forgot me.... He told father he must strike at once—to-night.... It’s going to be to-night. Somehow, by some means, he’s going to do some awful thing. He rushed out.... Then Philip’s wife came with a note ... and when father read it he ... died. It killed him....”
“To-night. Cantor is going to do something to-night. What? What else do you know?”
“Let me think. It was all so terrible.... He has an aeroplane. He is going to blow up factories and channels. In an hour. He said he could do it all in an hour.”
“Where is Cantor? Where did he go?”
“In his car. I don’t know where he went—it was that way”—she pointed—“away from the city.... He said it would be easy, that there was no way to stop him.”
“That way? Toward the lake?”
“Yes.”
Potter stood motionless, thinking as he had never thought before, sometimes thinking aloud.