"Prussic acid!" he exclaimed. "It has the same outward effect as an attack of heart-disease would produce, to a superficial examination.

Miss Lawton, how did you discover this?"

"By the merest accident. I have a habit of creeping in here, when I am more deeply despondent than usual, and sitting for a while in my father's chair. It calms and comforts me, almost as if he were with me once more. I was sitting there just before I telephoned you, thinking over all that had occurred in these last weeks, when I broke down and cried. I felt for my handkerchief, but could not find it, and thinking that I might perhaps have dropped it in the chair, I ran my hand down deep in the leather fold between the seat and the side and back. My fingers encountered something flat and hard which had been jammed away down inside, and I dug it out. It was this bottle! Mr. Blaine, does it mean that my father was murdered by that man whose voice I heard--that man who came to him in the night and threatened him?"

"I'm afraid it does, Miss Lawton." Henry Blaine said slowly. "When you hear that voice again and recognize it, we shall be able to lay our hands upon the murderer of your father."

CHAPTER XVII

THE RESCUE

Precisely at the hour of eight that night, a huge six-cylinder limousine drew up at the gate of Number Twenty-six Maple Avenue.

Half-way down the block, well in the shadow of the trees which gave to the avenue its name, two more cars and a motor ambulance had halted.

Doctor Alwyn, who had been excitedly awaiting the arrival of the detective, was out of his door and down the path almost before the car had pulled up at his gate. Within it were three men--Blaine himself and two others whom the Doctor did not know. Henry Blaine greeted him, introduced his operatives, Ross and Suraci, and they started swiftly upon their journey.

The doctor was plainly nervous, but something in the grim, silent, determined air of his companions imparted itself to him. The lights in the interior of the car had not been turned on, nor the shades lowered, and after a few tentative remarks which were not encouraged, Doctor Alwyn turned to the window and watched the brightly lighted cross streets dart by with ever-increasing speed. Once he glanced back, and started, casting a perturbed glance at the immovable face of the detective, as he remarked:

"Mr. Blaine, are you aware that we are being followed?"

"Oh, yes. Give yourself no uneasiness on that score, Doctor. They are two of my machines, filled with my men, and a Walton ambulance for Mr. Hamilton. We will reach Mac Alarney's retreat in an hour, now.

There will be a show of trouble, of course, and we may have to use force, but I do not antic.i.p.ate any very strenuous opposition to our removal of your patient, when Mac is convinced that the game is up. No harm will come to you, at any rate; you will be well guarded."

The Doctor drew himself up with simple dignity, quite free from bombast or arrogance.

"I am not afraid," he replied, quietly. "I am armed, and am fully prepared to help protect my patient."

"Armed?" the detective asked, sharply.

For answer, Doctor Alwyn drew from his capacious coat pocket a huge, old-fashioned pistol, and held it out to Blaine. The latter took it from him without ceremony.

"A grave mistake, Doctor. I am glad you told me, in time. Fire-arms are unnecessary for your own protection, and would be a positive menace to our plans for getting your patient safely away. Gun-play is the last thing we must think of; my men will attend to all that, if it comes to a show-down."

The Doctor watched him in silence as he slipped the pistol under one of the side seats. If his confidence in the great man beside him faltered for the moment, he gave no sign, but turned his attention again to the window. They were now rapidly traversing the suburbs, where the houses were widely separated by stretches of vacant lots, and the streets deserted and but dimly lighted. Soon they rattled over a narrow railroad bridge, and Doctor Alwyn exclaimed:

"By George! This is the way we went last night! With all my careful thought, I forgot about that bridge until this moment!"

Minutes pa.s.sed, long minutes which seemed like hours to the overstrained nerves of the Doctor, while they speeded through the open country.

All at once, from just behind them came a hideous, wailing cry, which swelled in volume to a screech and ended abruptly.

Doctor Alwyn grasped Blaine's arm.

"The motor-horn!" he gasped. "The car I was in last night!"

The detective nodded shortly, without speaking, and leaning forward, stared fixedly out of the window. A long, low-bodied limousine appeared, creeping slowly up, inch by inch, until it was fairly abreast of them. The curtain at the window was lowered, and the chauffeur sat immovable, with his face turned from them, as the two cars whirled side by side along the hard, glistening road. Blaine leaned forward, and pressed the electric bell rapidly twice, and there began a curious game. The other car put on extra speed and darted ahead--their own shot forward and kept abreast of it. It slowed suddenly, and made as if to swerve in behind; Blaine's driver slowed also, until both cars almost came to a grinding halt. Three times these maneuvers were repeated, and then there occurred what the detective had evidently antic.i.p.ated.

The curtain in the other car shot up; the window descended with a bang and a huge, burly figure leaned half-way out. Henry Blaine noiselessly lowered their own window, and suddenly flashed an electric pocket light full in the heavy-jowled face, empurpled with inarticulate rage.

"Is that your man?" he asked, quickly.

"The one with the three fingers! Yes! That's the man!" whispered the Doctor, hoa.r.s.ely.

"That's Mac Alarney." Blaine pressed the electric bell again, and their own car lunged forward in a spurt of speed which left the other hopelessly behind, although it was manifestly making desperate efforts to overtake and pa.s.s them.

"Do you suppose he suspected our errand?" the Doctor asked.

"Suspected? Lord bless you, man, he knows! He had already pa.s.sed the two open cars full of my men, and the ambulance. He'd give ten years of his life to beat us out and reach his place ahead of us to-night, but he hasn't a chance in the world unless we blow out a tire, and if we do we'll all go back in the ambulance together, what's left of us!"

Even as he spoke, there came a swift change in the even drone of their engine,--a jarring, discordant note, slight but unmistakable, and a series of irregular thudding knocks.

"One of the cylinder's missing, sir." Ross turned to the detective, and spoke with eager anxiety.

"We'll make it on five." The quiet confidence in Blaine's voice, with its underlying note of grim, indomitable determination, seemed to communicate itself to the other men, and no further word was said, although they all heard the thunder of the approaching car behind.

The Doctor restrained with difficulty the impulse to look backward, and instead kept his eyes sternly fixed upon the trees and hedge-rows flying past, more sharply defined shadows in the lesser dark.

Then, all at once, the shriek of a locomotive burst upon his ears, and the roar and rattle of a train going over a trestle.

"The railroad bridge!" he cried, excitedly. "We're there, Mr.

Blaine!"

The noise of the pa.s.sing train had scarcely died away, when from just behind them the hideous shriek of Mac Alarney's motor-horn rose blastingly three times upon the night air, the last fainter than the others, as if the pursuing car had dropped back.

"He's beaten! He couldn't keep up the pace, much less better it,"

Blaine remarked. "Those three blasts sounded a warning to the guards of the retreat. It was probably a signal agreed upon in case of danger. We're in for it now!"

They swerved abruptly, between two high stone gateposts, and up a broad sweep of graveled driveway. Lights gleamed suddenly in the windows of the hitherto darkened house, which loomed up gaunt and squarely defined against the sullen sky.

"Your men, in the other cars--" Doctor Alwyn stammered, as they came to a crunching stop before the door. "Will they arrive in time to be of service? Mac Alarney will reach here first--"

"My men will be at his heels," returned Blaine, shortly. "They held back purposely, acting under my instructions. Come on now."

He sprang from the car and up the steps, and the Doctor found himself following, with Ross and Suraci on either side. The driver turned their car around and ran it upon the lawn, its searchlight trained on the circling drive, its engine throbbing like the throat of an impatient horse.

In response to the detective's vigorous ring, the door was opened by a short, stocky man, at sight of whom the Doctor gave a start of surprise, but did not falter. The man was clad in the white coat of a hospital attendant, beneath which the great, bunchy muscles of his shoulders and upper arms were plainly visible.

"h.e.l.lo, Al!" exclaimed Blaine, briskly.

The veins on the thick bull neck seemed to swell, but there was no sign of recognition in the stolid jaw. Only the lower lip protruded as the man set his jaw, and the little, close-set, porcine eyes narrowed.

"You were a rubber at the Hoffmeister Baths the last time I saw you,"

went on the detective, smoothly, as he deftly inserted his foot between the door and jamb. "You remember me, of course. I'm Henry Blaine. My friends and I have come here to-night on a confidential errand, and I'd like a word in private with you."

The man he called "Al" muttered something which sounded like a disclaimer. Then he caught sight of the Doctor's face over Blaine's shoulder, and a spasm of black rage seized him.