“I must get out of this,” he thought.
He hurried into his little room, took down his light overcoat and hat, locked his desk, and grabbed the satchel. Then he turned out all but one light and opened the door. He tried to put on his old assured air, but it was almost gone. He was repenting rapidly.
“I wish I hadn’t done that,” he said. “That was a mistake.”
He walked steadily down the street, greeting a night watchman whom he knew who was trying doors. He must get out of the city, and that quickly.
“I wonder how the trains run?” he thought.
Instantly he pulled out his watch and looked. It was nearly half-past one.
At the first drugstore he stopped, seeing a long-distance telephone booth inside. It was a famous drugstore, and contained one of the first private telephone booths ever erected. “I want to use your ’phone a minute,” he said to the night clerk.
The latter nodded.
“Give me 1643,” he called to Central, after looking up the Michigan Central depot number. Soon he got the ticket agent.
“How do the trains leave here for Detroit?” he asked.