An exploring hand brought forth a little packet knotted in a handkerchief, one of his own.
Lanyard surmised its contents before he had succeeded in loosing the knots.
With a sense of sickness, he stood staring down at the stolen jewels of Folly McFee.
VII
In sequel the life of Michael Lanyard knew some of its busiest moments, his modest lodgings were the stage of a scene of rare animation whose solitary actor figured as the restless axis of a whirlwind of garments. Then the air, clearing, disclosed the man decently clad for the street and stowing away in a safe pocket his unchancy treasure-trove.
Thus far he had gone about doing what he had to do automatically in a measure, as one will in times of extremity, putting off against an hour more opportune, when he might bring a clearer head to bear upon the business, too, the deliberate study which his troubles needed. Enough now to know the longer he delayed where he was, the more immediate his peril of suffering a second domiciliary visit by the police; who on this new occasion, beyond much doubt, would be represented by agents less kindly biassed than Crane, more skeptical and thoroughgoing in the matter of searching for Folly McFee's emeralds. It remained for Lanyard to prove appreciation of this fleeting smile of fortune by turning to good account the slender chance it granted to work out his salvation in his own time and way.
One detail, however, he dared not slight, though it cost minutes each more precious than the last: Lanyard left behind him shoes and trousers from which every lingering suspicion of mud had been erased.
Some two hours later, after a tedious tale of twists and turns in the labyrinth of New York's several transportation systems, he left a train at the Mount Vernon terminal of the subway extension, and addressed himself to the tramp back to New York.
The sky was bright, the Indian Summer sunlight kind, the air inspiriting. By the time Lanyard had stretched his legs over a mile or two of by-roads—chosen for the long and lonely perspectives which enabled him to make sure he travelled with no other shadow than his own—he began to feel once more competent to ponder his fix and plot a way out.