A minute, and it was all over. The thick-set Al went down like a felled ox, and Mac Alarney wavered under an avalanche of blows and crumpled to his knees. 252 Handcuffed and securely bound, the two were bundled into Blaine’s waiting car.
“Paddington never double-crossed me!” groaned Mac Alarney, before the door closed upon him. “But you did, Blaine! Just as I meant to get him, I’ll get you! I fell for your d––d scheme, and since you’ve got the goods on me, I suppose I’ll go up, but God help you when I come out! I can wait––it’ll be the better when it comes!”
“But the others––” queried the Doctor, as he and Blaine, with the injured man between them, settled down in the ambulance for the slow, careful journey back to the city. “That third man who came for me last night––the one with the French accent and the cough––and the rest who are in this kidnaping plot? Will you get them, too?”
“Ross and Suraci are enough to guard Mac Alarney and Al on their way to the lock-up,” the detective responded quietly. “The others will go on up to the sanitarium and clean the place out. They’ll get French Louis, all right. And as for the rest who are concerned in this, Doctor Alwyn, be sure that I intend to see that they get their just deserts.”
“And it is said that you have never lost a case!” the Doctor remarked.
“I shall not lose this one.” Blaine spoke with quiet confidence, unmixed with any boastfulness. “I cannot lose; there is too much at stake.”
Late that night, Anita Lawton was awakened from a tortured, feverish dream by the violent ringing of the telephone bell at her bedside. The voice of Henry Blaine, fraught with a latent tension of suppressed elation, came to her over the wire.
“Miss Lawton, I shall come to you in twenty minutes. 253 Please be prepared to go out with me in my car. No, don’t ask me any questions now. I will explain when I reach you.”
His arrival found her dressed and restlessly pacing the floor of the reception-room, in a fever of mingled hope and anxiety.
“What is it, Mr. Blaine?” she cried, seizing his hand and pressing it convulsively in both of hers. “You have news for me! I can read it in your face! Ramon––”