Elias' memory could not carry him back to the time when he had
hired a cab. A cab was one of the luxuries he had not cultivated.
One can only imagine his surprise, then, when he found himself
hailing a passing hansom; and greater the surprise he must have
felt when he clambered in and ordered the driver to go in a gallop
to a certain place in Wells Street. Ten minutes later he was attired
in dry, warm clothes and in the cab again, bound for Bansemer's
home. What he said to James Bansemer on that memorable occasion
need not be repeated. It is only necessary to say that his host
was bitterly impressed and willing to admit that the developments
might prove serious. They could only speculate as to what had
transpired between David Cable and his wife out there by the sea
wall, but it was enough for them to know that a crisis was at hand.
"We'll see what the morning papers say about the affair," said
Bansemer, uneasy and cold.
The morning papers were full of the sensational robbery, the
prominence of the victim and the viciousness of the attack. Elias
Droom read the accounts eagerly as he breakfasted in the dingy little
restaurant near his home, bright and early. He grinned appreciably
over the share of glory that fell to him; and he actually cackled
over the new developments in the great mystery.
He had observed with relief that the name of James Bansemer was
not mentioned. The reports from the bedside of the robber's victim
were most optimistic. She was delirious from the effects of the
shock, but no serious results were expected. The great headlines on
the first page of the paper he was reading set his mind temporarily
at rest. There was no suggestion of truth in them.
The reader of this narrative, who knows the true facts in the
case, is doubtless more interested in the movements and emotions of
David Cable than in the surmises of others. It would be difficult,
for a certainty, to ask one to put himself in Cable's place and
to experience the sensations of that unhappy man as he fled along
the dark shore of the lake. Perhaps much will be taken on faith if
the writer simply says that the fugitive finally slunk from the
weeds and refuse of what was then called "The District of Lake
Michigan"--"Streeterville," in local parlance--to find himself
panting and terror-struck in the bleak east end of Chicago Avenue.
It was not until then that he secured control of his nerves and
resorted to the stealth and cunning of the real criminal.
From that time until he stood shivering and white with dogged
intention in a theatre foyer, bent upon establishing an alibi, his
movements are scarcely worth the details. Between the acts he saw
a dozen men whom he knew and he took drinks with several of them.
His tremendous will power carried him through the ordeal in a way
that could not have fallen to the good fortunes of the ordinary
lawbreaker.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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