“You will be hanged by the State or murdered by Oberzohn—I am not sure which,” he said simply, and he spoke with such perfect confidence that the heart of Monty Newton turned to water.
Manfred stood in the sidewalk and signalled, and the little car came swiftly and noiselessly across. Leon’s eyes were on the entrance. A tall man standing in the shadow of the hall was watching. He was leaning against the wall in a negligent attitude, and for a second Leon was startled.
“Get in quickly!”
Leon almost shouted the words back, and Manfred jumped into the machine, as the chauffeur sent the car forward, with a jerk that strained every gear.
“What on——?” began Manfred, but the rest of his words were lost in the terrific crash which followed.
The leather hood of the machine was ripped down at the back, a splinter of glass struck Leon’s cap and sliced a half-moon neatly. He jammed on the brakes, threw open the door of the saloon and leaped out. Behind the car was a mass of wreckage; a great iron casting lay split into three pieces amidst a tangle of broken packing-case. Leon looked up; immediately above the entrance to Oberzohn & Smitts’ was a crane, which had swung out with a heavy load just before Manfred came out. The steel wire hung loosely from the derrick. He heard excited voices speaking from the open doorway three floors above, and two men in large glasses were looking down and gabbling in a language he did not understand.
“A very pretty accident. We might have filled half a column in the evening newspapers if we had not moved.”
“And the gentleman in the hall—what was he doing?”
Leon walked back through the entrance: the man had disappeared, but near where he had been standing was a small bell-push which, it was obvious, had recently been fixed, for the wires ran loosely on the surface of the wall and were new.
He came back in time to see a policeman crossing the road.