Tom, who had been warned by the doctor not to excite his patient, thought it best to let the lad tell his story in his own way, and therefore did not put any questions regarding Jack. It can be imagined, then, with what a cruel shock he heard of the lad’s being abandoned to his fate in the burning building, after the flight of Rook and Radcliff with the model and Ralph.
He sank his head in his hands, quite unable to speak for some moments. As he knew, from what the policeman had told him that morning, that the building had been gutted by the fire, he found it impossible to cherish a hope that somehow Jack might have been saved. When he grew calmer Ralph went on with his narrative.
It appeared that after the men had fled from the blazing building they made their way directly to a garage where the yellow car had been put up. This place was not, properly speaking, a garage at all, but a stable in the low part of town, kept by friends of the rascally pair. Here they spent the rest of the night, sleeping in a hayloft.
During their passage through the streets Ralph was given no opportunity to appeal to passers-by. Jake Rook’s threats of what would happen to him if he did alarmed him far too effectually for him to disobey the ruffian’s orders to keep silent.
That morning had been spent by Jake Rook in active work of some sort. At any rate, Ralph said he had gone out early, after writing several letters in a sort of office attached to the stable. As he left the place to post them he had dropped one unnoticed, and, as Radcliff’s attention happened also to be distracted at that moment, Ralph had picked it up.
All that morning and the early part of the afternoon were spent in the stable and then, after Jake Rook’s return, the auto was run out and Ralph ordered to get into it with his two guardians. He dared not offer any opposition and soon the trio, skirting the city by back streets, were driving along a country road.
“We came to a place where there was a bridge,” said Ralph, “and the men stopped the car there. I heard them say they were going to some place up the creek that the bridge crossed.
“They both got out of the car and one of them took the model out of the box and looked at it to see if it had been damaged, for we had come over some pretty rough roads.
“The engine of the car had been left running, though the clutch was out, and I thought that maybe it was my chance to escape. I knew a little about autos, for that circus gang had one once. So I put my foot on what I thought was the clutch pedal, and the machine began to move off. But it wasn’t going very fast and Jake Rook jumped on the running board and pulled me clear out of the car.
“He fell over as he did so, and we both rolled into the road. Before he could get up again the car was out of sight. Rook was so mad that he picked me up round the waist and ran to the rail of the bridge with me and—and that’s all I remember,” said Ralph, bringing his narration to a close.