The 'bus guard was shaking Lanyard's arm with an ungentle hand.
"Here, now, you got no business boardin' a Special."
From his pocket Lanyard whipped the first bank-note his fingers encountered.
"Divide that with the chauffeur," he said crisply—"tell him to drive like the devil. It's life or death with me!"
The protruding eyeballs of the guard bore witness to the magnitude of the bribe.
"You're on!" he breathed hoarsely, and ran forward through the body of the conveyance to advise the driver.
Swarming up the curved stairway to the roof, Lanyard dropped into the rear seat, looking back.
The group round the doorway was recovering from its stupefaction. Three struck off from it toward the line of waiting cars. Of these the foremost was Ekstrom.
Simultaneously the 'bus, lumbering drunkenly, lurched into Columbus Circle, and the roadster left the curb carrying in addition to the driver two passengers—Ekstrom on the running-board.
Tardily Lanyard repented of that impulse which had moved him to bestow his one weapon upon Cecelia Brooke.
The night air had a biting edge. A chill rain had begun to drizzle down in minute globules of mist, which both lent each street light its individual nimbus of gold and dulled deceitfully the burnished asphaltum, rendering its surface greasy and treacherous. More than once Lanyard feared lest the 'bus skid and overturn; and before the old red brick building between Broadway and Eighth
