"Then I'll get the police to stop it!" she hissed. "I'm going to telephone now."
"And get Bill Marshall into all kinds of trouble?"
She hesitated. Doubtless it would make a great deal of trouble for Bill Marshall, not only with the authorities of the law, but with Aunt Caroline. He deserved the worst, of course, and yet—— Ever since the middle of that afternoon she had felt that the administering of justice to Bill was something that lay properly in her own hands. If she had cared to analyze the matter closely she would have found that it was not justice she sought so much as vengeance.
And while she still hesitated at Pete's reminder, a bell sounded in the library.
She looked again toward the open transom. The Kid and the Bearcat were in view again, no longer nonchalantly inert, but in animated action. Their bodies were tense and swaying, their arms moving in a bewildering series of feints, their feet weaving in and out in a strange series of steps that seemed to have an important relation to their task. The Bearcat was grim, the Kid smiling contentedly.
Suddenly the blond one shot an arm forward and behind it lunged his body. Mary clutched the banister. But Signor Antonio Valentino, still smiling, merely flirted his head a few inches and the gloved fist went into space across his shoulder. At the same time, he seemed to be doing something himself. Mary could not, with all her inexperience, discern exactly what it was, but she saw the Bearcat's head snap backward and she heard him grunt audibly as he clinched.
"The Kid'll eat him," whispered Pete. "Gee, I wish I had a bet down!"
Mary shuddered. She decided to go up-stairs, but somehow she could not release her grip on the banisters. She felt that she ought to go away and hide from this horror in Aunt Caroline's library. Even if she could not move, at least, she thought, she could close her eyes. But when she tried to close them, somehow they persisted in staying open.
The two young sculptors on the other side of the transom were now entering upon their artistic task with amazing speed and zest. Sometimes it took them entirely beyond the vision of the watchers on the staircase. Then they would come zigzagging back into view again; first their legs, then their bodies, then their flying arms and low-bent heads. There was a constant smacking and thudding of gloves, a heavy padding of feet on the parquet floor. Now and then Mary heard the sharp voice of the beefy man: "Break! Break clean!" Once she saw him stride roughly between the panting pair reckless of his own safety, fling them apart with a sweep of his arms and say something in a savage tone to the Bearcat. But no sooner had he passed between them than they met again behind his back; the Bearcat swinging a glove that landed flush on the celebrated tin ear.
The bell rang again. Kid Whaley stopped an arm that was moving in mid air, dropped it to his side and walked quickly away. The Bearcat also walked out of sight.