“But where did they go?” cried the father. “Can’t we get him?”
Clifford did not reply. Already his faculties had recovered; they were working with incredible speed, a speed that made each thought a flash. He recalled what he had witnessed and heard before Bradley had come—recalled the details of the plot with which Bradley had taunted his victim—he totaled them—he made his deduction.
He sprang across the room with new energy and seized Slim Harrison by the collar. “They wouldn’t have taken your car without you! You’re going to drive us!—and you’re going to show us all your machine has got! Come on, Jimmie,” he cried sharply. “No, Jimmie, you and Uncle George go down and look through the basement and see if there’s signs of any of them there—and meet me out in front! Come on, Mr. Morton!”
And leaving the bruised and unregarding Bradley in charge of Jimmie’s men, Clifford hurried the dazed Slim Harrison before him through the tapestries and out of Le Bain’s house of luxurious silence.
CHAPTER XXXII
PLEASURE PRESENTS ITS BILL
Over the black, oiled boulevard that reaches, with many tributaries and parallels, from Manhattan’s Fifty-ninth Street Bridge to the twin points of Long Island, Jack Morton’s new racing roadster was speeding eastward through the heavy three-o’clock night—Jack at the wheel, Nina Cordova beside him, and Loveman and Hilton in the seat behind. The little lawyer had thought rapidly; and now, sunk low in the soft leather, he was counting his chances which had suddenly grown desperate, but which he still saw as large, if only there were no more slips and he got his share of luck. And as the car whirred on, devouring the silent, deserted miles, on and on went his brain, calculating his chances, shaping the details of his new course—that brain whose supreme and sole function was to plan—in which function all other qualities and potentialities of the man had become centered and concentrated, and for which they and the body itself had come solely to exist—that brain which would never cease its tireless, brilliant planning until death should still its mechanism.
He had revised his plans the instant Clifford had entered the dining-room—had seen instantly what was his best and only way. Getting Jack where he now sat had been simple. “Come on, Jack,—the police will get you for this, too!” he had cried. And Jack, befuddled with drink, and feeling that his lot now lay with these friends, had obeyed instantly and without question. Into Jack’s waiting car Loveman had sharply ordered those essential to his revised plan.
“You know the Long Island roads?—the way to Greenport?” he had asked Jack after they were in their seats.
“Sure.”
“Then make Greenport as quick as you can. Remember that motor yacht Bradley spoke of?” He spoke with a cunning tone of excitedly pleasant anticipation. “We’re going to be a bunch of pirates,—going to capture the old tub—and you and Nina and Hilton and I are going to have a nice little cruise and wine party all to ourselves. How’s that?”