As Clay slammed the door shut and the car moved forward he had an impression of something gone wrong, of a cog in his plans slipped somewhere. For Annie, standing in the rain under a sputtering misty street light, showed a face stricken with fear.
Her dilated eyes were fixed on the driver of the taxi-cab.
CHAPTER XXI
AT THE HEAD OF THE STAIRS
The cab whirled round the corner and speeded down a side street that stretched as far as they could see silent and deserted in the storm.
The rain, falling faster now, beat gustily in a slant against the left window of the cab. It was pouring in rivulets along the gutter beside the curb. Some sixth sense of safety—one that comes to many men who live in the outdoors on the untamed frontier—warned Clay that all was not well. He had felt that bell of instinct ring in him once at Juarez when he had taken a place at a table to play poker with a bad-man who had a grudge at him. Again it had sounded when he was about to sit down on a rock close to a crevice where a rattler lay coiled.
The machine had swung to the right and was facing from the wind instead of into it. Clay was not very well acquainted with New York, but he did know this was not the direction in which he wanted to go.
He beat with his knuckles on the front of the cab to attract the attention of the driver. In the swishing rain, and close to the throb of the engine, the chauffeur either did not or would not hear.
Lindsay opened the door and swung out on the running-board. "We're goin' wrong. Stop the car!" he ordered.
The man at the wheel did not turn. He speeded up.