!... Loon!..."

The chill air of early morning wiped the blistering epithets from his
lips as he fled like a madman down Fifth Avenue, at every stride
wringing from the depths of an embittered bosom new and more virulent
terms of vituperation with which to characterize his infatuated
stupidity--and finding one and all far too mild. In simple truth, the
King's English lacked invective poisonous enough to do justice to his
self-contempt.

Deliberately had he permitted himself to be duped, circumvented,
over-reached. He had held in his hand a tangible clue to that mystery
which had so perplexed him--and had allowed it to be filched away
before he could recognise it and shape his course accordingly.

Why had he never for an instant dreamed that the term "_two-thirty_"
could indicate anything but the hour of some otherwise undesignated
appointment? Of course it had signified the number of Marian's
carriage-check, "230": _two hundred and thirty_, rolling off the
modern tongue, stripped to essentials--thanks to the telephone's
abbreviated influence--as, simply, "_two-thirty_"!

And he had held that check in his hand, had memorised its number and
repeated it to Marian, had heard it bawled by the carriage porter, had
shouted it himself in reply: never for an instant thinking to connect
it with the elder Shaynon's parting admonition to the gang leader!

If he had ere this entertained any doubts whatever of the ugly grounds
for his fears they were now resolved by recognition of Bayard's clumsy
ruse to keep him both out of the cab and out of the way, while
November and his lieutenants executed their infamous commission....

And all that was now ten--fifteen--twenty minutes old! Marian's car
was gone; and if it had not reached the Plaza, the girl was lost,
irrevocably lost to the frantic little man with the twinkling red
heels and scarlet breeches, sprinting so wildly down Fifth Avenue in
the dank, weird dusk that ran before the dawn of that April morning.

Fortunately he hadn't far to run; else he would certainly have been
waylaid or overhauled by some policeman of enquiring turn of mind,
anxious (in the way of duty) to learn his reason for such
extraordinary haste.

As it was, P. Sybarite managed to make his goal in record time without
attracting the attention of more than half a dozen wayfarers; all of
whom gave him way and went their own with that complete indifference
so distinctly Manhattanesque....

He had emerged