“Hello! Mr. Merriwether?” said a woman's voice—clear, sweet, and vibrant, but unknown. “This is Miss Hervey—the nurse—Dr. Leighton's trained nurse. They asked me to tell you about your father. Don't be alarmed!”
“Go on!” commanded young Merriwether, sharply.
“It is nothing serious—really! But if you could come home it probably—Yes, doctor! I am coming!” And the conversation ceased abruptly.
Tom instantly left the club. He took the solitary taxicab that stood in front of the club. He afterward recalled the fact that there was only one where usually there were half a dozen.
“Eight-sixty-nine Fifth Avenue. Go up Madison to Sixtieth and then turn into the Avenue. Hurry!”
“Very good, sir,” said the chauffeur.
The taxicab dashed madly up Madison and up Fifth Avenue, and finally stopped—not before the Merriwether home, but in front of Number 777. Before he could ask the chauffeur what he meant by it both doors of the cab opened at once and two men sandwiched between them Mr. Thomas Thorne Merriwether. The one on the west, or Central Park, side threateningly held in his hand a business-like javelin—not at all the kind that silly people hang on the walls in their childish attempts at decorative barbarity. The man who half entered the taxicab from the east, or sidewalk, side held in his left hand a beer-schooner full of a colorless liquid that smoked, and in his right something completely but loosely covered by a white-linen handkerchief.
“Please listen, Mr. Merriwether!” said the man with the glass. “Do nothing! Don't even move! Hear me first!”
“Is my father—”
“I am glad to say he is well and happy, and working in his office down-town. The message that brought you here was a subterfuge. Your father is as usual. We arranged it so you had to take this particular taxicab. Don't stir, please!”