"And, in 1932, he got mixed up with a girl who had a somewhat dubious reputation herself. A dancer, a frequenter of night-clubs, as they used to be called. Her name was Doris Johns--something like that. She evidently thought she could get money out of Tugh. Whatever it was, there was a big uproar. The girl had him arrested, saying that he had assaulted her. The police had quite a time with the cripple." Larry and I remembered a few of the details of it now, though neither of us had been in New York at the time. Alten went on: "Tugh fought with the police. Went berserk. I imagine they handled him pretty roughly. In the Magistrate's Court he made another scene, and fought with the court attendants. With ungovernable rage he screamed vituperatives, and was carried kicking, biting and snarling from the court-room. He threatened some wild weird revenge upon all the city officials--even upon the city itself." "Nice sort of chap," Larry commented. But Alten did not smile. "The Magistrate could only hold him for contempt of Court. The girl had absolutely no evidence to support her accusation of assault. Tugh was finally dismissed. A week later he murdered the girl. "The details are unimportant; but he did it. The police had him trapped in his house; had the house surrounded--this same one on Patton Place--but when they burst in to take him, he had inexplicably vanished. He was never heard from again." Alten continued to regard us with grim, solemn face. "Never heard from--until to-night. And now we hear of him. How he vanished, with the police guarding every exit to that house--well, it's obvious, isn't it? He went into another Time-world. Back to 1777, doubtless." Mary Atwood gave a little cry. "I had forgotten that I must warn you. Tugh told me once, before Father and I quarreled with him, that he had a mysterious power. He was a most wonderful man, he said. And there was a world in the future--he mentioned 1934 or 1935--which he hated. A great city whose people had wronged him; and he was going to bring death to them. Death to them all! I did not heed him. I thought he was demented, raving...." * * * * * Alten's little clock ticked with tumultuous heartbeat through another silence. The great city around us, even though this was two o'clock in the morning, throbbed with a myriad of blended sounds. A warning! Was the girl from out of the past giving us a warning of coming disaster to this great city? Alten was pacing the floor. "What are we to do--tell the authorities? Take Mistress Mary Atwood to Police Headquarters and inform them that she has come from the year 1777? And that, if we are not careful, there will be an attack upon New York?" "No!" I burst out. I could fancy how we would be received at Police Headquarters if we did that! And our pictures in to-morrow's newspapers. Mary's picture, with a jibing headline ridiculing us.