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.
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