"An hour or so ago I met old Brian coming out of a dive known as Dutch House, the worst in this old Town. What business had he there, if he's an honest man? I can't tell you because I don't know. But it was foul—that's certain. Else why need he have incited Red and his followers to drug Peter Kenny into forgetfulness? Peter found him there before I did. It was only after the deuce of a row that I got the boy away alive."
Temporarily he suppressed mention of Peter's hurt. The girl had enough to occupy her without being subjected to further drain upon her sympathies.
"I'd like to know!" he wound up gloomily.... "That old scoundrel never visited Dutch House out of simple curiosity; and whatever his purpose, one thing's sure—it wasn't one to stand daylight. It's been puzzling me ever since—an appointment of some sort he made with November just as I hove within earshot. 'Two-thirty,' he said; and November repeated the hour and promised to be on the job. 'Two-thirty!'—what can it mean? It's later than that now but—mark my words!—something's going to happen this afternoon, or to-morrow, or some time soon, at half-past two o'clock!"
"Perhaps you're right," said the girl doubtfully. "And yet you may be wrong in thinking me involved in any way. Indeed, I'm sure you must be wrong. I can't believe that he could wish me actual harm."
"Miss Blessington," said P. Sybarite solemnly, "when you ran off in that taxi at midnight, I had five dollars in all the world. This minute, as I stand, I'm worth twenty-five thousand—more money than I ever hoped to see in this life. It means a lot to me—a start toward independence—but I'd give every cent of it for some reliable assurance that Brian Shaynon and his son mean you no harm."
Surprised and impressed by his unwonted seriousness, the girl instinctively shrank back against the balustrade.
"Mr. Sybarite—!" she murmured, wide-eyed.
He remarked her action with a gesture almost of supplication.
"Don't be alarmed," he begged; and there was in his voice the least flavour of bitterness. "I'm not going to say anything I shouldn't—anything you wouldn't care to hear. I'm not altogether mad, Miss Blessington; only...
"Well!" he laughed quietly—"when my run of luck set in to-night back there at the gambling house, I told myself it was Kismet's doing—that this was my Day of Days. If I had thought, I should instead have called it my Night of Nights—knowing it must wear out with the dawn."