“I'll answer. No man can threaten me, even anonymously or in foolery.”
On a slip of paper he wrote the succinct message, “Go to hell,” signed it, and placed it in the carrying apparatus with which the bird had been thoughtfully supplied.
“Now we'll let her loose. Where's my son? I'd like him to see the flight.”
“He's down in the workshop. He slept there last night, and had his breakfast sent down this morning.”
“He'll break his neck yet,” Peter Winn remarked, half-fiercely, half-proudly, as he led the way to the veranda.
Standing at the head of the broad steps, he tossed the pretty creature outward and upward. She caught herself with a quick beat of wings, fluttered about undecidedly for a space, then rose in the air.
Again, high up, there seemed indecision; then, apparently getting her bearings, she headed east, over the oak-trees that dotted the park-like grounds.
“Beautiful, beautiful,” Peter Winn murmured. “I almost wish I had her back.”
But Peter Winn was a very busy man, with such large plans in his head and with so many reins in his hands that he quickly forgot the incident. Three nights later the left wing of his country house was blown up. It was not a heavy explosion, and nobody was hurt, though the wing itself was ruined. Most of the windows of the rest of the house were broken, and there was a deal of general damage. By the first ferry boat of the morning half a dozen San Francisco detectives arrived, and several hours later the secretary, in high excitement, erupted on Peter Winn.
“It's come!” the secretary gasped, the sweat beading his forehead and his eyes bulging behind their glasses.