Gordon had a long wait before he finally secured the coveted stateroom and started back to her, when suddenly a face that he knew loomed up in the crowd and startled him. It was the face of a private detective who was well known about Washington, but whose headquarters were in New York.
Until that instant, it had not occurred to him to fear watchers so far south and west as Pittsburgh. It was not possible that the other bridegroom would think to track him here, and, as for the Holman contingent, they would not be likely to make a public disturbance about his disappearance, lest they be found to have some connection with the first theft of government property. They could have watchers only through private means, and they must have been wily indeed if they had anticipated his move through Pittsburgh to Washington. Still, it was the natural move for him to make in order to get home as quickly as possible and yet escape them. And this man in the crowd was the very one whom they would have been likely to pick out for their work. He was as slippery in his dealings as they must be, and no doubt was in league with them. He knew the man and his ways thoroughly, and had no mind to fall into his hands.
Whether he had been seen by the detective yet or not, he could not tell, but he suspected he had, by the way the man stood around and avoided recognizing him. There was not an instant to be lost. The fine stateroom must go untenanted. He must make a dash for liberty. Liberty! Ah, East Liberty! what queer things these brains of ours are! He knew Pittsburgh just a little. He remembered having caught a train at East Liberty Station once when he had not time to come down to the station to take it. Perhaps he might get the same train at East Liberty. It was nearly two hours before it left.
Swooping down upon the baggage, he murmured in the girl’s ear:
“Can you hurry a little? We must catch a car right away.”
She followed him closely through the crowd, he stooping as if to look down at his suit-case, so that his height might not attract the attention of the man whose recognition he feared, and in a moment more they were out in the lighted blackness of the streets. One glance backward showed his supposed enemy stretching his neck above the crowd, as if searching for some one, as he walked hurriedly toward the very doorway they had just passed. Behind them shadowed the man in the slouch hat, and with a curious motion of his hand signalled another like himself, the Pittsburgh crony, who skulked in the darkness outside. Instantly this man gave another signal and out of the gloom of the street a carriage drew up at the curb before the door, the cabman looking eagerly for patronage.
Gordon put both suit-cases in one hand and taking Celia’s arm as gently as he could in his haste hurried her toward the carriage. It was the very refuge he sought. He placed her inside and gave the order for East Liberty Station, drawing a long breath of relief at being safely out of the station. He did not see the shabby one who mounted the box beside the driver and gave his directions in guttural whispers, nor the man with the slouch hat who watched from the doorway and followed them to a familiar haunt on the nearest car. He only felt how good it was to be by themselves once more where they could talk together without interruption.
But conversation was not easy under the circumstances. The noise of wagons, trains and cars was so great at the station that they could think of nothing but the din, and when they had threaded their way out of the tangle and started rattling over the pavement the driver went at such a furious pace that they could still only converse by shouting and that not at all satisfactorily. It seemed a strange thing that any cabman should drive at such a rapid rate within the city limits, but as Gordon was anxious to get away from the station and the keen-eyed detective as fast as possible he thought nothing of it at first. After a shouted word or two they ceased to try to talk, and Gordon, half shyly, reached out a reassuring hand and laid it on the girl’s shrinking one that lay in her lap. He had not meant to keep it there but a second, just to make her understand that all was well, and he would soon be able to explain things, but as she did not seem to resent it, nor draw her own away, he yielded to the temptation and kept the small gloved hand in his.
The carriage rattled on, bumpety-bump, over rough places, around corners, tilting now and then sideways, and Celia, half-frightened, was forced to cling to her protector to keep from being thrown on the floor of the cab.
“Oh, are we running away?” she breathed awesomely into his ear.