FullReads

With searches into closets and close scrutiny of all dark corners passed en route, the procession advanced to the top floor, mainly guided in its oncoming by the clew deduced from the circumstances of the mad intruder having betrayed a desire to secure access to Mr. Slack’s apartment, with the intention, as the caretaker more than once suggested on her way up, of murdering Mr. Slack in his bed. Before the ascent had been completed she was quite certain this was the correct deduction, and so continued to state with all the emphasis of which she was capable.

“He couldn’t possibly have got downstairs again,” somebody hazarded; “so he must be upstairs here still–must be right round here somewhere.”

“Didn’t I tell you he was lookin’ for Mr. Slack to lay in wait for him and destroy the poor man in his bed?” shrilled the caretaker.

“Watch carefully now, everybody. He might rush out of some corner at us.”

“Say, my transom’s halfway open!” Mr. Bob Slack exclaimed. “And, by Jove, there’s a light shining through it yonder from the bedroom. He’s inside–we’ve got him cornered, whoever he is.”

Boldly Mr. Slack stepped forward and rapped hard on the door.

“Better step on out peaceably,” he called, “because there’s an officer here with us and we’ve got you trapped.”

“It’s me, Bob, it’s me,” came in a wheezy, plaintive wail from somewhere well back in the apartment.

“Who’s me?” demanded Mr. Slack, likewise forgetting his grammar in the thrill of this culminating moment.

“Algy–Algernon Leary.”

“Not with that voice, it isn’t. But I’ll know in a minute who it is!” Mr. Slack reached pocketward for his keys.

“Better be careful. He might have a gun or something on him.”

“Nonsense!” retorted Mr. Slack, feeling very valiant. “I’m not afraid of any gun. But you ladies might stand aside if you’re frightened. All ready, officer? Now then!”

“Please come in by yourself, Bob. Don’t–don’t let anybody else come with you!”

XIV

If he heard the faint and agonised appeal from within Mr. Slack chose not to heed it. He found the right key on his key ring, applied it to the lock, turned the bolt and shoved the door wide open, giving back then in case of an attack. The front room was empty. Mr. Slack crossed cautiously to the inner room and peered across the threshold into it, Mr. Braydon and a grey-coated private watchman and a procession of half-clad figures following along after him.

Where was the mysterious intruder? Ah, there he was, huddled up in a far corner alongside the bed as though he sought to hide himself away from their glaring eyes. And at the sight of what he beheld Mr. Bob Slack gave one great shocked snort of surprise, and then one of recognition.

For all that the cowering wretch wore a quaint garment of a bright and watermelonish hue, except where it was streaked with transom dust and marked with ash-can grit; for all that his head was bare, and his knees, and a considerable section of his legs as well; for all that he had white socks and low slippers, now soaking wet, upon his feet; for all his elbow sleeves and his pink garters and his low neck; and finally for all that his face was now beginning, as they stared upon it, to wear the blank wan look of one who is about to succumb to a swoon of exhaustion induced by intense physical exertion or by acutely prolonged mental strain or by both together–Mr. Bob Slack detected in this fabulous oddity a resemblance to his associate in the practice of law at Number Thirty-two Broad Street.

“In the name of heaven, Leary—-” he began.

But a human being can stand just so many shocks in a given number of minutes–just so many and no more. Gently, slowly, the gartered legs gave way, bending outward, and as their owner collapsed down upon his side with the light of consciousness flickering in his eyes, his figure was half-turned to them, and they saw how that he was ornamentally but securely buttoned down the back with many large buttons and how that with a last futile fluttering effort of his relaxing hands he fumbled first at one and then at another of these buttons.

“Leary, what in thunder have you been doing? And where on earth have you been?” Mr. Slack shot the questions forth as he sprang to his partner’s side and knelt alongside the slumped pink shape.

Languidly Mr. Leary opened one comatose eye. Then he closed it again and the wraith of a smile formed about his lips, and just as he went sound asleep upon the floor Mr. Slack caught from Mr. Leary the softly whispered words, “I’ve been the life of the party!”