Visions of being suddenly pocketed in that vast, out of the way mansion by a ring of Camorrists, assailed me, and I instinctively felt for my revolver.
“Don’t worry,” said the baffling Lanagan. “The trap won’t spring for several hours yet. But after it does spring,” he went on, “and this mess is over, I’m prepared to present the fair Bina with the biggest box of French mixed in town. That is,” quizzically, “if my puritanical Mentor will permit me to? But seriously, Norrie,”—his next words came forth rather hurriedly, and much as a shamed school-boy might make a confession,—“seriously these Italian girls are mature women at sixteen. And though you may not think it, I am only thirty-four.”
When it filtered into me what he was driving at I jumped to my feet and pulled him to his.
“Jack,” I cried delightedly, “you don’t mean—”
“No,” he said, shortly, “I don’t mean anything, now or any other time, Norrie, until I’ve taken a seat on this water wagon that I know I can ride for life.”
My thoughts shot back to that declaration in the reporters’ room that I had pondered often since uttered. It was clear enough now. He was a man’s man, Jack Lanagan; and looking back now even after the years that have passed since then, looking back from the content of my own cosy home, the tears spring and I stop writing. He did not marry Bina.
“That’s about enough of that,” he said. “I wanted you to get the lay of the house by daylight. Let’s get out of here. I’ve got to see Leslie.”
But we were only as far as the head of the stairs leading to the lower floor when a key grated in a lock some place beneath us and Lanagan gripped my arm, his finger to his lips, his eyes glittering like a snake’s. We swung back on tiptoes to a small closet at the end of the hall, pulling the door almost shut after us. Lanagan dropped, his eye to the keyhole. He had drawn his revolver and I drew mine; my heart was beginning to thump like a big bass drum. There came to my ears the sound of footfalls up the creaking stairs. At first it seemed like a dozen men and I concluded for once that one of Lanagan’s traps was going to spring the wrong way.
The footfalls disintegrated as they came nearer and I found there was but one person. Lanagan’s eye might have been stuck fast to that keyhole, for his hat brim did not waver the fraction of an inch as he held his rigid, cramped position for long minute after minute.
Finally the footfalls sounded back down the stairs. Lanagan did not move until, to our taut ear drums, came the sound of the closing rear door.