Reasonable? That was the word he used. A knight prating of the reasonable!
Mr. Magee unlocked the door of number seven and entered. Lighting his candles and prodding the fire, he composed a note to the waiting girl in seventeen:
"Everything all right. Sleep peacefully. I am on the job. Will see you to-morrow. Mr.—Billy."
Slipping this message under her door, the ex-knight hurried away to avoid an interview, and sat down in his chair before the fire.
"I must think," he muttered. "I must get this thing straight."
For an hour he pondered, threshing out as best he could this mysterious game in which he played a leading part unequipped with a book of rules. He went back to the very beginning—even to the station at Upper Asquewan Falls where the undeniable charm of the first of these girls had won him completely. He reviewed the arrival of Bland and his babble of haberdashery, of Professor Bolton and his weird tale of peroxide blondes and suffragettes, of Miss Norton and her impossible mother, of Cargan, hater of reformers, and Lou Max, foe of suspicion. He thought of the figure in the dark at the foot of the steps that had fought so savagely for the package now in his own pocket—of the girl who had pleaded so convincingly on the balcony for his help—of the colder, more sophisticated woman who came with Hal Bentley's authority to ask of him the same favor. Myra Thornhill? He had heard the name, surely. But where?
Mr. Magee's thoughts went back to New York. He wondered what they would say if they could see him now, whirling about in a queer romance not of his own writing—he who had come to Baldpate Inn to get away from mere romancing and look into men's hearts, a philosopher. He laughed out loud.
"To-morrow is another day," he reflected. "I'll solve this whole thing then. They can't go on playing without me—I've got the ball."
He took the package from his pocket. Its seals had already been broken. Untying the strings, he began carefully to unwrap the paper—the thick yellow banking manila, and then the oiled inner wrapping. So finally he opened up the solid mass of—what? He looked closer. Crisp, beautiful, one thousand dollar bills. Whew! He had never seen a bill of this size before. And here were two hundred of them.
He wrapped the package up once more, and prepared for bed. Just as he was about to retire, he remembered Mr. Bland, bound and gagged below. He went into the hall with the idea of releasing the unlucky haberdasher, but from the office rose the voices of the mayor, Max, and Bland himself. Peace, evidently, had been declared between them. Mr. Magee returned to number seven, locked all the windows, placed the much-sought package beneath his pillow, and after a half-hour of puzzling and tossing, fell asleep.