er, when something happened
that left him transfixed, a motionless and bodiless head on which
startled horror had suddenly fallen.

For out of the quiet and shadowy south side of the street, where it had
been silently patrolling under lowered speed, swerved and darted a
wine-colored, surrey-built touring car with a cape top. Durkin
recognized it at a glance; it was Penfield's huge machine. Its
movement, as it swung in toward the startled woman, seemed like the
swoop of a hawk. It appeared to stop only for a moment, but in that
moment two men leaped from the wide-swung tonneau door. When they
clambered into it once more Durkin saw that Frank was between them.
And one of the men was MacNutt, and the other Keenan.

He heard the one sharp scream that reverberated down the empty street,
followed by the fading pulsations of the departing car, when with an
oath of fury, he was already working his arms up through the narrow
manhole. As he did so he heard a second, hoarser cry, succeeded by the
heavy tramp of hurrying feet, and then a peremptory challenge.

Turning sharply, he caught sight of a patrolling roundsman, bearing
down on him from the corner of Broadway; and he saw that the officer
was drawing his revolver as he charged across the wet pavement.

It was already too late to free himself. With an instinctive movement
of the hands he caught up the manhole cover, shield-like. As he did so
he saw the glimmer of the polished steel and heard the repeated
challenge. But he neither paused nor hesitated. He let his knees
break under him, and as he fell he saw to it that the rim of the
manhole dropped into its waiting circular groove. Then he heard the
sound of a shot, of a second and a third, from the policeman's pistol.
But as he secured the cover with its chainlock, and dropped down into
the tunnel below, the reports seemed thin and muffled and far away to
Durkin.

A moment later, however, he heard the ominous and vibrant echo of the
officer's night-stick, on the asphalt, frenziedly rapping for
assistance.

CHAPTER XXV

THE RULING PASSION

Beyond that first involuntary little cry of terror Frances Durkin
uttered no sound, as she found herself in the hooded tonneau, wedged in
between MacNutt and Keenan. That first outcry, indeed, had been
unwilled and automatic, the last reactionary movement of an overtried
and exhausted body.

A wave of care-free passivity now seemed to inundate her. She made no
a