The nearer door of his apartment was open. Through it the music of the gramophone came gaily; and she went toward it and entered the brilliantly illuminated studio.
Soane, who still lay flat on the roof overhead, peeping through the ventilator, saw her enter, all dishevelled, grasping in one hand the fragments of a letter. And the sight instantly sobered him. He tucked his shoes under one arm, got to his stockinged feet, made nimbly for the scuttle, and from there, descending by the service stair, ran through the courtyard into the empty hall.
“Be gorry,” he muttered, “thot dommed Dootchman has done it now!” And he pulled on his shoes, crammed his hat over his ears, and started east, on a run, for Grogan’s.
Grogan’s was still the name of the Third Avenue saloon, though Grogan had been dead some years, and one Franz Lehr now presided within that palace of cherrywood, brass and pretzels.
Into the family entrance fled Soane, down a dim hallway past several doors, from behind which sounded voices joining in guttural song; and came into a rear room.
The one-eyed man sat there at a small table, piecing together fragments of a letter.
“Arrah, then,” cried Soane, “phwat th’ devil did ye do, Max?”
The man barely glanced at him.
“Vy iss it,” he enquired tranquilly, “you don’d vatch Nihla Quellen by dot wentilator some more?”