Bending over the motor, with his face made unearthly by the artificial light that fell upon it obliquely, casting deep shadows, was that villain, Mr. Prawley! I have never seen anything so devilish as that wretch as he worked with inhuman agility and haste. His long, claw-like fingers danced from one part of the machine to another fiendishly, and a hideous grin distorted his features. He was humming some weird tune, and I noted that he was ambidextrous, for he was varnishing the hood with one hand while with the other he was putting in a new spark plug. A tremor of horror passed over Millington and over me at the same moment. A few whispered words, a few stealthy steps, and we burst in and seized Mr. Prawley by the arms. In a moment we had him on the floor of the garage, bound hand and foot.
Millington was for wreaking immediate vengeance on him, but I stood firmly for a more lawful course, and the next day we handed him over to the authorities, and his whole miserable story came out. His name was not Mr. Prawley at all. Neither was it Alonzo Duggs, which was the name he he had given us when Isobel and I hired him. His name was William Alexander Vandergribbin. He came of good family, but mania for speeding automobiles had brought him to ruin, and the third time he was arrested for over-speeding a sentence of thirty years in the penitentiary had been pronounced by the judge. The judge, however, had suspended the sentence provided that William Alexander Vandergribbin never again touched an automobile.
For several years Vandergribbin fought down his appetite. Then he fell. He changed his name to Flossy Zozo, and secured a job as the death-defying loop-the-gappist with the big show. For a time the speeding down the runway in the fake automobile, with the somersault at the bottom of the run, appeased his cravings, but the rules of the show prohibited him from tinkering with the fake automobile, which was strictly in charge of the property man, and Vandergribbin left the show, changed his name to Alonzo Duggs, and seeking our quiet town, chose work in the house nearest the man owning the oldest automobile. For weeks he had watched his opportunity—you know the rest. He is now in Sing Sing.
I am sorry to end this story so abruptly, but Millington has just come over to ask if I would not like to take a little run out to Port Lafayette. I have always wanted to go to Port Lafayette, which is about eleven miles from here; so, if you will excuse me, I will go and button Isobel's matinee gown, and we will be off.