...
Should he appeal to the police? His solicitude for the girl forbade
him such recourse save as a last resort. Publicity must be avoided
until the time when, all else having failed, it alone held out some
little promise of assistance.
But--adrift and blind upon uncharted seas of uncertainty!--what to do?
Suddenly it became plain to him that if in truth it was with her as he
feared, at least two persons knew what had become of the girl--two
persons aside from himself and her hired kidnappers: Brian Shaynon and
Bayard, his son.
From them alone authoritative information might be extracted, by ruse
or wile or downright intimidation, eked out with effrontery, a stout
heart, and perhaps a little luck.
A baleful light informing his eyes, an ominous expression settling
about his mouth, he gave the operator the address of Shaynon's
town-house; and as the car slipped away from the hotel was sensible of
keen regret that he had left at Peter Kenny's, what time he changed
his clothing, the pistol given him by Mrs. Jefferson Inche, together
with the greater part of his fortuitous fortune--neither firearms nor
large amounts of money seeming polite additions to one's costume for a
dance....
In five minutes the car drew up in front of one of those few
old-fashioned, brownstone, English-basement residences which to-day
survive on Fifth Avenue below Fifty-ninth Street, elbowed, shouldered,
and frowned down upon by beetling hives of trade.
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