The door slammed, and again the bolt shot into place. Laurie listened. No sound whatever came from the inner hall. The old house was again apparently dead, after its moments of fierce life. He slowly descended the steps, and, bracing himself against the nearest tree, stared at the house, still gasping from the effects of the struggle.
He was out of it, but he had left Doris behind. The fact sickened him. So did the ignominy of his departure. He was not even to be followed. His absence was all the gang desired. His impulse was to force the door and again face the four of them. But he realized that he could accomplish nothing against such odds, and certainly, as a prisoner in the house, trussed up with Shaw's infernal rope, he would be of no use to either Doris or himself. He decided to return to the garage and get his car and the weapon he had left there. Then, if the four still wanted to fight, he would show them something that might take the spirit out of them.
Having arrived at this sane conclusion, he turned away from the silent house, and, hatless and coatless as he was, hurriedly made his way through the heavy snow-drifts toward the public road.
CHAPTER XV
MR. SHAW DECIDES TO TALK
At the garage he found Burke faithful to his trust and with an alert eye out for more five-dollar bills. The proprietor temporarily lost sight of these, however, in his sudden and vivid interest in the new patron's appearance.
Laurie answered his questions with a word that definitely checked the further development of curiosity. Then, huddling over the stove, and warming his icy, soaked feet, he curtly outlined his intentions. He was going to change back into his own clothes, he explained, and he would want his car at five o'clock sharp. This, he intimated, would give Burke a little more than half an hour in which to get his mental processes started again and to have the car ready.
Burke whistled inaudibly. Obviously the joke the lad had played had not panned out to the young man's taste. Burke was sorry for that. His experience had been that with these young "rounders" generosity went hand in hand with success and its attendant exhilaration; and that when depression set in, as it obviously had done in this instance, a sudden paralysis numbed the open palm.
However, even granting that this was so, he had already been largely overpaid for anything he had done or might still be expected to do. He nodded his response to the young man's instructions, and though he was not a subtle person, he succeeded in conveying at the same time a sense of his sympathy with the natural annoyance of a high-spirited practical joker whose joke had plainly miscarried. Ordinarily his attitude would have amused Devon, but Laurie was far from his sense of humor just now. Still whistling softly, Burke departed, to make a final inspection of the car, leaving Laurie the sole occupant of the cramped and railed-in corner that represented the private office.