Why? Why? Why? Again and again the question had recurred to him, and this time it dug itself in.
Despite his love for her (and he fully realized that this was what it was), despite his own experience of the night before, he had hardly been able to accept the fact that she was, must be, in actual physical danger. When, now, the breath of this realization blew over him, it checked his heart-beats and chilled his very soul. In the next instant something in him, alert, watchful, and suspicious, addressed him like an inner voice.
"Shaw will threaten," this voice said. "He will fight, and he will even chloroform. But when it comes to a show-down, to the need of definite, final action of any kind, he simply won't be there. He is venomous, he'd like to bite, but he has no fangs, and he knows it."
The vision of Shaw's face, when he had choked him during the struggle of last night, again recurred to Laurie. He knew now the meaning of the look in those projecting eyes. It was fear. Though he had carried off the rest of the interview with entire assurance, during that fight the creature had been terror-stricken.
"He'll have reason for fear the next time I get hold of him," Laurie reflected, grimly. But that fear was of him, not of Doris. What might not Doris be undergoing, even now?
He went to the little safe in the wall of his bedroom, and took from it all the ready money he found there. Oh, if only Rodney were at home! But Mr. Bangs had gone out, the hall man said. He also informed Mr. Devon that his car was at the door.
The need of consulting Rodney increased in urgency as the difficulties multiplied. Laurie telephoned to Bangs's favorite restaurant, to Epstein's office, to Sonya's hotel. At the restaurant he was suavely assured that Mr. Bangs was not in the place. At the office the voice of an injured office boy informed him that there wasn't never nobody there till half-past nine. Over the hotel wire Sonya's colorful tones held enough surprise to remind Laurie that he could hardly hope that even Rodney's budding romance would drive him to the side of the lady so early in the morning.
He hung up the receiver with a groan of disgust, and busied himself packing a small bag and selecting a greatcoat for his journey. Also, he went to a drawer and took out the little pistol he had taken away from Doris in the tragic moment of their first meeting.
Holding it in his hand, he hesitated. Heretofore, throughout his short but varied life, young Devon had depended upon his well-trained fists to protect him from the violence of others. But when those others were the kind who went in for chloroform—and this time there was Doris to think of. He dropped the revolver into his pocket, and shot into the elevator and out on the ground floor with the expedition to which the operator was now becoming accustomed.
His car was a two-seated "racer," of slender and beautiful lines. As he took his place at the wheel, the machine pulsated like a living thing, panting with a passionate desire to be off. Laurie's wild young heart felt the same longing, but his year in New York had taught him respect for its traffic laws and this was no time to take chances. Carefully, almost sedately, he made his way to Third Avenue, then up to the Queensboro Bridge, and across that mighty runway to Long Island. Here his stock of patience, slender at the best, was exhausted. With a deep breath he "let her out" to a singing speed of sixty miles an hour.