"I intend to," and the haggard young face turned again to the table and forgot us.
"For Heaven's sake, Kennedy," I gasped as we went down the stairway, "what do you mean by giving him such advice—you?"
"Not so loud, Walter. He'd have done it anyhow, I suppose, but I want him to keep at it. This night means life or death to Percival DeLong and his mother, too. Come on, let's get out of this."
We passed the formidable steel door and gained the street, jostled by the late-comers who had left the after-theatre restaurants for a few moments of play at the famous club that so long had defied the police.
Almost gaily Kennedy swung along toward Broadway. At the corner he hesitated, glanced up and down, caught sight of the furniture-van in the middle of the next block. The driver was tugging at the harness of the horses, apparently fixing it. We walked along and stopped beside it.
"Drive around in front of the Vesper Club slowly," said Kennedy as the driver at last looked up.
The van lumbered ahead, and we followed it casually. Around the corner it turned. We turned also. My heart was going like a sledge-hammer as the critical moment approached. My head was in a whirl. What would that gay throng back of those darkened windows down the street think if they knew what was being prepared for them?
On, like the Trojan horse, the van lumbered. A man went into the Vesper Club, and I saw the negro at the door eye the oncoming van suspiciously. The door banged shut.
The next thing I knew, Kennedy had ripped off his disguise, had flung himself up behind the van, and had swung the doors open. A dozen men with axes and sledge-hammers swarmed out and up the steps of the club.
"Call the reserves, O'Connor," cried Kennedy. "Watch the roof and the back yard."