The Seventh Noon Part 16

Then one of the two men was not Ben. She took out again the pocket-book she had found and stared at it as though in hope that she might receive her answer through this. Then with a perplexed gasp, she threw it into one of the upset drawers, as though it burned her fingers.

She went downstairs to Donaldson. For reasons of her own she did not dare to tell him of this fresh complication, but she insisted that he should bother himself no more to-night with the matter.

"You should go straight back home and get some sleep," she told him.

Home? The word was flat again.

"And you?" he inquired.

"I shall try to sleep, too."

"You have a bolt on your door?"

"Yes."

"Will you promise to slide it before you retire?"

She nodded.

"If you only had a telephone in your room."

"There is one in the hall."

"Then you can call me in a moment if you should get frightened or need me?"

"You are good."

"You will not hesitate?"

"No."

"Then I shall feel that I am still near you. I will have a cab in waiting and on an emergency can reach here in twenty minutes. You could keep yourself barricaded until then?"

"Yes. But really there is no need. I--"

"You have n't wrestled with him. He is strong and--mad."

Still he hesitated. If it had been possible without compromise to her he would have remained downstairs. He could roll up in a rug and find all the sleep that he needed.

"See here," he exclaimed, as the sane solution to the whole difficulty, "why don't you let me take you and Marie to the Martha Was.h.i.+ngton?"

She placed her hand lightly upon his sleeve.

"I shall be all right here. You 'd best go at once and get some sleep.

Your eyes look heavy."

Every minute that he stood near her he grew more reluctant to leave.

It seemed like desertion. As he still stood irresolute, she decided for him.

"You must go now," she insisted.

"Will you call me if you are even so much as worried--even if it is only a blind making a noise?"

"Yes, and that will make me feel quite safe."

The booming of a distant clock--jailer of civilization--warned him that he must delay no longer. He took her hand a moment and then turned back into his free barren world.

He determined to dine somewhere down town and then spend the evening at a theatre. It was not what he wished, but he did not dare to go back to his room. He did not crave the movement of the crowds as he had last night, and yet he felt the need of something that would keep him from thinking. He jumped into the waiting cab and was driven to Park Row, where he got out. He had not eaten anything all day and felt faint.

Instead, however, of seeking one of the more pretentious dining rooms he dropped into a quiet restaurant and ate a simple meal. Then he came out and started to walk leisurely towards the Belasco.

He had not proceeded a hundred yards before his plan was very materially changed. He heard a cry, turned quickly, and saw a messenger boy sprawling in the street. The boy, in darting across, had tripped over a rope attached to an automobile having a second large machine in tow. The latter, the driver unable to turn because of vehicles which had crowded in on both sides of it, was bearing down upon the boy, who was either stunned or too frightened to move. This Donaldson took in at a glance as he dived under the belly of a horse, seized the boy and, having time for nothing else, held him above his head, dropping him upon the radiator of the approaching machine as it bore him to the ground. The chauffeur had shoved on his brakes, but they were weak. The momentum threw Donaldson hard enough to stun him for a moment and was undoubtedly sufficient to have killed the boy.

When Donaldson rose to his feet he found himself uninjured but something of a hero. Several newspaper photographers who happened to be pa.s.sing (as newspaper photographers have a way of doing) snapped him. A reporter friend of Saul's recognized him and asked for a statement.

"A statement be hanged," snorted Donaldson. "Where's the kid?"

"Well," returned the newspaper man, "I 'm darned if I don't make a statement to you then; that was the quickest and nerviest stunt I 've ever seen pulled off in New York city."

"Thanks. Where 's the kid?"

The kid, with a grin from ear to ear, had kindly a.s.sumed a pose upon the radiator of the machine which had so nearly killed him for the benefit of the insatiate photographers. It was 3457.

"You!" exclaimed Donaldson, as he found himself looking into the familiar face. He lifted the boy to the ground.

"Let's get out of the crowd, kid," he whispered. "I want to see you."

He pushed his way through to the sidewalk, followed by the admiring throng, and hurried along to the nearest cab. He shoved the boy quickly into this and followed after as the photographers gave one last despairing snap.

"Drive anywhere," he ordered the driver. "Only get out of this."

He turned to the boy.

"Are you hurt?"

"No. Are youse?"

"Not a mite. Where were you bound?"

"Home."

"Where is that?"

The boy gave an address and Donaldson repeated it to the driver.

"I 'll go along with you and see that you don't block any more traffic."

"Gee. I never saw the rope."