which to make
good his escape before the alarm could be given.

He possessed himself of a slouch hat that he found in Moody's room and
drew its brim well down over his eyes, then cautiously unlocked the
back door of the jail. This gave on to a narrow, unlighted alley,
which led to a quiet side-street. There was little chance of his
meeting any one at that hour of the night. After a quick survey which
assured him the alley was deserted, he left the building and locked the
door.

The fresh night air after the stuffy atmosphere of the jail hit him
hard. It sent the potent fumes of the whisky to his head, and by the
time he had reached the end of the alley he was staggering perceptibly.
He vaguely realized his condition and the peril it implied, and paused
for an instant at the first corner to steady himself against the wall
of a building while he strove to clear his brain. He jerked off his
hat to give the air access to his head, too fuddled to note that a
street-lamp not ten yards away was shining directly on his face.

Then a tight grip fastened on his arm and he was pushed back into the
obscurity of the alley.

"Charlie Maxon, by glory! Who let _you_ out?"

"Wh-who are you?"

"Who am I? Well, that's pretty good! Mean to say you can't _see_ me?
I'm Langhorn!"

_XII: Starlight on Steel_

When he had finished his examination of the broken window in the
living-room, Herman Krech contrived--partly by his sheer physical bulk
and partly by the exercise of a soft assertiveness that was saved by
his bland geniality from being plain rudeness--to sequester Simon Varr
for a word in private. To accomplish this end he was obliged to shake
off his own wife, the tanner's wife, the Jason Bolts and Miss Ocky
Copley, the last lady in especial revealing the pertinacity of a
cockle-burr in her objection to being shaken off. Krech didn't succeed
in losing her until he had shut the door of the study in her face with
a courteously affected air of absent-mindedness.

"What do you want?" inquired Varr ungraciously.

"I've got a message for you--sorry if I'm intruding," replied the big
man, half-amused and half-resentful at his host's tone. "I'm afraid it
will annoy you--but most things do, don't they? But Creighton thought
it best to give you a tip and of course I feel obliged to pass it on as
received."

"All right. What is it?" said the tanner less irascibly.

"Practically a repetition of the warning I gave