“And after you are aboard the vessel,” the old woman went on, “you must pretend to have fallen into the water by mistake. You are never to mention being in this apartment at all. When they put you ashore, go on about your business until you receive a note from me. Then we can settle the matter of the money. It will be signed ‘Mother DeMott’.”
“That’s all very well,” Havens remarked, sawing away at the cords on his wrists, “but I can’t give the blow you ask for, mother.”
“If you don’t,” the old woman insisted, “I shall be murdered before morning!”
“I’ll compromise by tying you up,” Havens said. “I’ll tie you good and tight, and put a handkerchief over your mouth, and they will never suspect.”
The young millionaire thought he detected a queer smile on the face of the old lady as he tied the cords with which he had been bound about her withered old wrists and ankles!
The window was not barred or protected in any way, so the sash was easily lifted. It opened to a paved street, the bottom of the sash running on a level with the stones, for the apartment in which he had been confined was a half basement. It was perhaps two o’clock in the morning, and only the skulkers of the night were abroad.
Here and there men slouched by with their chins low down on their breasts and their greasy hats hiding furtive eyes. Now and then a policeman, swinging a heavy night-stick, passed along the street, mumbling imprecations at the waifs who refused to go to bed for the very good reason that they had no beds to go to!
Havens passed out of the window unobserved. He saw a man standing at the entrance to a sailor’s boarding house, next door, and there were several moving about at the head of the pier. However, no one seemed to pay any attention to him as he crossed the street and sat down on the pier with his legs hanging over the side.
While he waited for those nearest to him to go about their business, if they had any to go to, the man standing in the boarding-house door, lit a cigar and waved the still flaming match up and down in the quiet air, as if for the purpose of extinguishing the flame.
At that time Havens thought nothing at all of the incident, but later on he remembered with self-reproach that he ought to have been warned by it.