“You won't—what?” Birdie leaned out from his seat. He stared for a moment in bewilderment, and then started to climb out of the taxi.
The pressure of John Bruce's revolver increased steadily.
“Damn it, you fool!” Crang screamed out wildly. “Beat it! Do you hear? Beat it!”
Birdie's face darkened.
“Oh—sure!” he muttered, with a disgruntled oath. He shot the gears into place with a vicious snap. “Sure—anything you say!” The taxi roared down the lane, and disappeared around the corner in a volley of exhausts.
“Go on!” John Bruce ordered.
At the corner of the lane John Bruce turned to Larmon.
“You are safe, and out of it now,” he said. “I am going to ask you to step into the first store we pass and get me some good light rope, but after that I think you had better leave us. If anything happened between here and the steamer, or on the steamer, you would be implicated.”
“Tck!” It was the quill toothpick again. “I'll get the rope with pleasure,” Larmon said calmly; “but I never lay down a good hand. I am going to the steamer.”
John Bruce shrugged his shoulders. Larmon somehow seemed an abstract consideration at the moment—but Larmon had had his chance.