Criminals -- Fiction; Ex-convicts -- Fiction; Love stories
“When you are through, sir, we will be going.”
The voice was the same he had heard over the wire. Larry hung up and
followed the man out the side door, noting only that he had a lean,
respectful face. At the curb stood a limousine, the door of which was
opened by the man for Larry. Larry stepped in.
“Are you followed, sir?” inquired the man.
“I don't know.”
“We'd better make certain. If you are, we'll lose them, sir. We'll stop
somewhere and change our license plates again.”
Instead of getting into the unlighted body with him, as Larry had
expected, the man closed the door, mounted to the seat beside the
chauffeur, and the car shot west and turned up Riverside Drive.
One may break the speed laws in New York if one has the speed, and if
one has the ability to get away with it. This car had both. Never before
had Larry driven so rapidly within New York City limits; he knew
this, that any trailing taxicab would be lost behind. At
Two-Hundred-and-Forty-Fifth Street the car swung into Van Cortland Park,
and switched off all lights. Two minutes later they halted in a dark
stretch of one of the by-roads of the Park.
“We'll be stopping only a minute, sir, to put on our right number
plates,” the man opened the door to explain.
Within the minute they were away again, now proceeding more
leisurely, in the easy manner of a private car going about its private
business--though the interior of the car was discreetly dark and
Larry huddled discreetly into a corner. Thus they drove over the Grand
Boulevards and recrossed the Harlem River and presently drew up in front
of a great apartment house in Park Avenue.
The man opened the door. “Walk right in, sir, as though you belong here.
The doorman and the elevatorman are prepared.”
They might be prepared, but Larry certainly was not; and he shot up the
elevator to the top floor with mounting bewilderment. The man unlocked
the door of an apartment, ushered Larry in, took his wet hat, then
ushered the dazed Larry through the corner of a dim-lit drawing-room and
through another door.
“You are to wait here, sir,” said the man, and quietly withdrew.
Larry looked about him. He took in but a few details, but he knew enough
about the better fittings of life to realize that he was in the presence
of both money and the best of taste. He noted the log fire in the broad
fireplace, comfortable chairs, the imported rugs on the gleaming floor,
the shelves of books which climbed to the ceiling, a quaint writing-desk
in one corner which seemed to belong to another country and another
century, but which was perfectly at home in this room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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