CHAPTER VIII
BY MEANS OF THE FIRE ESCAPE
Kirby Lane stood with fascinated eyes looking down at the glove,muscles and brain alike paralyzed. The receiver was in his hand, closeto his ear.
A voice from the other end of the wire drifted to him. "Number,please."
Automatically he hung the receiver on the hook. Dazed though he was,the rough rider knew that the police were the last people in the worldhe wanted to see just now.
All his life he had lived the adventure of the outdoors. For twelvemonths he had served at the front, part of the time with the forces inthe Argonne. He had ridden stampedes and fought through blizzards. Hehad tamed the worst outlaw horses the West could produce. But he hadnever been so shock-shaken as he was now. A fact impossibly butdreadfully true confronted him. Wild Rose had been alone with hisuncle in these rooms, had listened with breathless horror while Kirbyclimbed the stairs, had been trapped by his arrival, and had foughtlike a wolf to make her escape. He remembered the wild cry of heroutraged heart, "Nothing's too bad for a man like that."
Lane was sick with fear. It ran through him and sapped his supplestrength like an illness. It was not possible that Rose could havedone this in her right mind. But he had heard a doctor say once thatunder stress of great emotion people sometimes went momentarily insane.His friend had been greatly wrought up from anxiety, pain, fever, andlack of sleep.
In replacing the telephone he had accidentally pushed aside a book.Beneath it was a slip of paper on which had been penciled a note. Heread it, without any interest.
Mr. Hull he come see you. He sorry you not here. He say maybe perhapsmake honorable call some other time.
S. HORIKAWA
An electric bell buzzed through the apartment. The sound of itstartled Kirby as though it had been the warning of a rattlesnake closeto his head. Some one was at the outer door ringing for admission. Itwould never do for him to be caught here.
He had been trained to swift thought reactions. Quickly butnoiselessly he stepped to the door and released the catch of the Yalelock so that it would not open from the outside without a key. Heswitched off the light and passed through the living-room into thebedchamber. His whole desire now was to be gone from the building assoon as possible. The bedroom also he darkened before he stepped tothe window and crept through it to the platform of the fire escape.
The glove was still in his hand. He thrust it into his pocket as hebegan the descent. The iron ladder ran down the building to the alley.It ended ten feet above the ground. Kirby lowered himself and dropped.He turned to the right down the alley toward Glenarm Street.
A man was standing at the comer of the alley trying to light a cigar.He was a reporter on the "Times," just returning from the Press Clubwhere he had been playing in a pool tournament.
He stopped Lane. "Can you lend me a match, friend?"
The cattleman handed him three or four and started to go.
"Just a mo'," the newspaper-man said, striking a light. "Do youalways"--puff, puff--"leave your rooms"--puff, puff, puff--"by the fireescape?"
Kirby looked at him in silence, thinking furiously. He had beencaught, after all. There were witnesses to prove he had gone up to hisuncle's rooms. Here was another to testify he had left by the fireescape. The best he could say was that he was very unlucky.
"Never mind, friend," the newspaper-man went On. "You don't look likea second-story worker to yours truly." He broke into a little amusedchuckle. "I reckon friend husband, who never comes home till Saturdaynight, happened around unexpectedly and the fire escape looked good toyou. Am I right?"
The Wyoming man managed a grin. It was not a mirthful one, but itserved.
"You're a wizard," he said admiringly.
The reporter had met a bootlegger earlier in the evening and had two orthree drinks. He was mellow. "Oh, I'm wise," he said with a wink."Chuck Ellis isn't anybody's fool. Beat it, Lothario, while thebeating's good." The last sentence and the gesture that accompaniedthe words were humorous exaggerations of old-time melodrama.
Lane took his advice without delay.