“The wind hustled about a little, splashes of rain hurried along with it, and it grew dark in the street. Once or twice the shades lifted and, Mr. Link”—Jack was a picture of poignant eagerness—“I saw the big peach and her man, the two of the Library steps, just the same as I see you. They’d open the window too and look out together down into the street. I knew why, sir. They expected that limousine—and it came.”
The constraint of any position more repressive than sitting to Jack, now on the edge of his exposure could not be imagined. He stood up, moved towards me, the color mounting in his pale cheeks, his body bent a little forward, and his eyes lighting up with an interior brilliancy that suddenly made me realize Jack might become a good-looking man.
“After that they’d go away from the window farther back; I think they carried a lamp with them for the light would fade away, or else they turned the gas off. At eleven o’clock—I could hear the clock bells from the steeples—the wind was racing and it began to rain hard. I got some shelter under the doorway; the light never left the attic across the street. I felt it all over me, sir, that IT was coming. I’m not sure, I may have fallen asleep, but I came to with a bounce. Lightning was chasing through the sky and the thunder was booming and—the door of No. — was open; the light from the hall flickered over the wet sidewalk, but the shower had passed. The man and the woman both stood there for an instant, then they went in and the door shut with a slam. I thought, sir, I had lost the trail. I never felt worse. I hated them, Mr. Link. Good reason, too.” His hands suddenly searched his vest, they were unrewarded; his face grew blank and he dropped his hands helplessly, while a piteous look of consternation and utter despondency shot from his eyes to mine, by this time fully sympathetic and as lustrous as his own.
His glance fell on his hat that lay at his feet on the floor, a flood of revived remembrances followed; he snatched it up, fumbled in its lining and pulled out a scrap of wrinkled paper. The returning sunshine of confidence renewed again the handsome look I had noticed before. He certainly was working up his effects with a remarkable melodramatic insight that was captivating.
“I ran down the steps into the street, I had heard a distant croak of an auto-horn, and on top of it came the toll of one o’clock from a tower. I had been asleep over an hour. There was no light in No. — except upstairs, as before, in the attic. Then the croak seemed to come from towards the East River, and I saw two balls of light rushing at me. IT WAS THE LIMOUSINE. I started back, and stumbled over a small cobble stone. It looked like an intervention—a message, Mr. Link—who knows? I picked it up, and I pulled out a jack knife I had in my pants. Why? I didn’t know, but, sir, they both came in handy.
“The auto sneaked up quiet enough, wheeled round facing East River, and crept in a little to one side of No. —. Mine wasn’t the only pair of eyes watching for it. It had hardly grazed the curb when the front door opened and there stood Mephistopheles, behind the beautiful woman, both in the half dark. I knew them, alright. The man came down the steps bareheaded, he carried a short something in his right hand. The sprinkle started again, and a smash of thunder roared overhead, and a clot-like gloom came out of it. Under that cover I dashed over the street like a hare, and crept tight up to the back of the car. In it sat Husky—the peg-top fellow that met ’em in Fifth Avenue—and another man, smaller, and sort of muffled up. The chauffeur in front never stirred from first to last.
“Meph. opened the door; Husky stepped out; he shook the little man. I heard him mutter ‘Come out here. Be fly, but quiet, or by God, I’ll stick yer through and no compunctions, mind yer.’ The bundle inside stirred; I peeped in from behind, a little higher; he was in a black bag or something like it, and as he stooped under the door and stumbled out, the two caught him, lifted him and started up the steps, where the woman leaned forward—it seemed to me she kept clapping her hands together softly as if she couldn’t hold in for delight. Then, sir—”
Jack straightened himself, bent back, relaxed, pitched forward with one outstretched arm, projected like a catapult, in front of him, “then, sir, I let fly—not at them—I didn’t know who I might hit and anyhow, hit or miss, they’d slipped off through that door quicker’n snakes. That was no use. The cobble stone slammed through the glass side of the limousine, it went through that and split the window opposite. I haven’t pitched for the Bogotas for nothing, sir. Before they had time to think, I jabbed my jack knife through the tire and off it went like a mortar. Everything was quiet then up above and the crash and the explosion had the center of the stage, as you people say. I guess it made their hearts jump. They looked around, the woman screamed, and—I screamed—and that chauffeur didn’t even turn about. For nerve or sheer fright he had the record. Perhaps at such times, sir, you can’t distinguish. Eh?
“Well, they lost their grip on the bundle, for it was a pretty uneasy load to carry now; the interruption perhaps gave the fellow inside some hope. He rolled down the steps onto the pavement like a bag of beans, moving slightly like a strangled dog. I heard Husky’s voice, ‘Inside, inside with him! Don’t stop, swat him,’ and then the black scoundrel raised his cudgel and beat the poor creature insensible. I heard him groan where I stood. I was crazy with rage; I felt myself suffocating. I had been shouting, ‘Help! Help!’ but my voice left me; I discovered that I was very wet, and then a strange vertigo came over me, a pain crossed my chest, and a fire seemed to rage in my throat. I was sick, sir. I am—”
Jack tottered. I caught him, poor fellow; exposure and overstrained emotions had prostrated him. And he was still damp; perhaps breakfast-less. I had been thoughtless, but no time was to be lost. There was an emergency room in the building, and there Jack was hurried. Strengthened with nourishment, and warmed again into animation with stimulants, revived by sleep—he hardly stirred for sixteen hours, so deathlike was his slumber—he just escaped a serious illness. Recuperation was instantaneous; his own mental energy worked wonders and when two days later he returned to the theme of his story hardly a trace of his weakness was betrayed. He was keen to engage in the solution of the midnight mystery and he implored me not to share his discovery with anyone else except the police to whom indeed I had already related Jack’s experience. Jack realized that their co-operation was indispensable. It was then he showed me the wrinkled scrap of paper which he had secreted in the lining of his cap, and afterwards stuck in his trousers’ pocket, and which I had forgotten.