It seemed to take but a minute or two in the car to swing us from Twelfth Street up to Twentieth, and then eastward into the stillness of the square. My captors had insisted that I should not talk. "Not a word!" commanded Orrie, and I could feel his insolent gun-barrel against my ribs as he gave the command for the second time. They were drunk, I could see, with the intoxication of their exploit. They were preoccupied with inhaling their subtle sense of drama. With the dictatorial self-sufficiency of true inebriety they had enjoined me from every effort at explanation. The bubble, they felt, was far too pretty a one to be pricked. They alighted, one in front of me and one behind me, still carrying their foolish and murderous-looking firearms. The girl remained in her seat. Then the three of us grimly ascended my steps. "It's needless to ring the bell," I wearily explained. "My pass-key will admit you." "But I insist on ringing," said Orrie as I fitted the key to the lock. "I shall be compelled, in that case, to call the officer who is watching us from the corner," was my quiet response. "Call and be hanged, then!" was the younger man's ultimatum. One word over their shoulders brought my old friend McCooey, the patrolman, across the corner and up the steps. I swung open the door as he joined us. Then I turned on the hall lamps and faced my two captors. "Officer, I want you to look at me very carefully, and then assure these gentlemen I am Witter Kerfoot, the owner and occupant of this house." "Sure he's Kerfoot," said the unperturbed McCooey. "But what's the throuble this time?" "Something more serious than these gentlemen dream of. But if the three of us will go quietly upstairs, you'll find my man Benson there. You'll also find another man, tied up with half a dozen--" McCooey, from the doorway, cut me short. "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't be stayin' to see your joke out." "But you've got to." "Fact is, sir," he explained, in a lowered voice, "Creegan, av Headquarthers, has a Sing-Sing lifer bottled up in this block, and I'm holdin' wan end av the p'lice lines--a jail-breaker, sir, and a tricky wan, called Pip Foreman, the Rat!" "The Rat?" I echoed. "The same, sir. But I must be off." "Don't go," I said, closing the door. "_Your man's up-stairs, waiting for you_!" "Waitin' for me?" he demanded. "What man?" "The man they call the Rat," I tried to explain to him. "And I'll be greatly obliged to you, McCooey, if you'll make as short work of this situation as you can, for the truth of the matter is, I feel rather tired, and fancy there's five or six hours of good honest sleep awaiting me!" CHAPTER III THE STOLEN WHEEL-CODE