An astonished horse, roused from a droop-eared lethargy, was yanked almost by main strength out of the cab-rank and into the middle of the Avenue. Before he could recover, the long whip-lash had leaped out over the roof of the vehicle, and he found himself stretching away up the Avenue on a dead run.
Yet to Maitland the pace seemed deadly slow. He fidgeted on the seat in an agony of impatience, a dozen times feeling in his waistcoat pocket for his latch-keys. They were there, and his fingers itched to use them.
By the lights streaking past he knew that their pace was furious, and was haunted by a fear lest it should bring the police about his ears. At Twenty-ninth Street, indeed, a dreaming policeman, startled by the uproar, emerged hastily from the sheltering gloom of a store-entrance, shouted after the cabby an inarticulate question, and, getting no response, unsheathed his night-stick and loped up the Avenue in pursuit, making the locust sing upon the pavement at every jump.
In the cab, Maitland, turning to watch through the rear peep-hole, was thrown violently against the side as the hansom rocketed on one wheel into his street. Recovering, he seized the dashboard and gathered himself together, ready to spring the instant the vehicle paused in its headlong career.
Through the cabby's misunderstanding of the address, in all likelihood, the horse was reined in on its haunches some three houses distant from the apartment building. Maitland found himself sprawling on his hands and knees on the sidewalk, picked himself up, shouting "You'll wait?" to the driver, and sprinted madly the few yards separating him from his own front door, keys ready in hand.
Simultaneously the half-winded policeman lumbered around the Fifth Avenue corner, and a man, detaching himself from the shadows of a neighboring doorway, began to trot loutishly across the street, evidently with the intention of intercepting Maitland at the door.
He was hardly quick enough. Maitland did not even see him. The door slammed in the man's face, and he, panting harshly, rapped out an imprecation and began a frantic assault on the push-button marked "Janitor."
As for Maitland, he was taking the stairs three at a clip, and had his pass-key in the latch almost as soon as his feet touched the first landing. An instant later he thrust the door open and blundered blindly into the pitch-darkness of his study.
For a thought he stood bewildered and dismayed by the absence of light. He had thought, somehow, to find the gas-jets flaring. The atmosphere was hot and foul with the odor of kerosene, the blackness filled with strange sounds and mysterious moving shapes. A grunting gasp came to his ears, and then the silence and the night alike were split by a report, accompanied by a streak of orange flame shooting ceilingward from the middle of the room.
Its light, transient as it was, gave him some inkling of the situation. Unthinkingly he flung himself forward, ready to grapple with that which first should meet his hands. Something soft and yielding brushed against his shoulder, and subconsciously, in the auto-hypnosis of his excitement, he was aware of a man's voice cursing and a woman's cry of triumph trailing off into a wail of pain.