Together they rolled in a frenzied struggle.
“Run back, Helene. The clock will explode!” cried Shirley, desperately. Instead, she sprang into the bright room, espied the diabolical arrangement in the corner, and ran to pick it up. She saw the wire, and her deft fingers reached behind the clock to turn back its hands. Had she torn the wire, as a man would have done, the dreaded explosion would have ended it all.
“We're coming!”
It was the voice of Pat Cleary from the passageway. He rushed through the subterranean passage, followed by several men, with Dick Holloway excitedly in their train. After a titanic struggle, with the man baffled in this maddening moment of ruined triumph, they handcuffed him.
Shirley led Helene into the front compartment before she could observe the horror stamped upon the face of the murdered rogue.
The girl turned her glorious eyes to his, reached forth her hands, and then the eternal feminine conquered as she trembled unsteadily and sank into his arms.
“Break down the doors, Cleary. Out here, to the street. Pull off the hands of that clock—it's a lyddite bomb!” cried Shirley, excitedly.
One of the men used the table with clattering effect. The iron door of the front room gave way, and Shirley carried Helene up the ladder, to the main floor of the old garage. She seemed a sleeping lily—so pale, so fragile, so fragrant in her colorless beauty. He had never seen her so before! For an instant a great terror pierced him: she seemed not to breathe. But as he placed his face close to her mouth, her eyes opened for one divine look, then drooped again. A white hand and arm curled, with childish confidence, about his shoulder. He bore her thus to the big car from the Agency, which stood outside.
“Quick, down to the Hotel California,” he called to the chauffeur, “Pat Cleary can handle matters there.”
As they sped toward her apartment the roses took their wonted place in her cheeks. She sat up to smile in his face. Then she lowered her glance, with carmine mounting hotly to her brow. Helene said no word—nor did Shirley. She simply leaned toward him, to bury her face upon the broad shoulder, as neither heeded the possible curiosity of the driver on the seat in front.