Part 14 (1/2)
”This is my girl, and one of those fellows tried to steal her,” said Burke in a gruff voice. ”I was onto the game, and that's why I had the starter get you ready. She lives on West Seventy-first Street, near West End Avenue. Now, you run along on the right side of the street, and I'll point out the house.”
He was planning a second ”double” on his trail. The chauffeur grunted and started the machine again. The girl was moaning with pain in an incoherent way.
As they rolled slowly down West Seventy-first Street Bobbie saw a house which showed a light in the third floor. Presumably the storm door would not be locked, as it would have been in case the tenants were away. He knocked on the window.
The taxi came to a stop.
The chauffeur opened the door and Burke sprang out.
”Here's a ten-dollar bill, my boy,” said Burke. ”I'll have to square her with her mother, so you come back here in twenty minutes and take me down to that restaurant. I'm going to clean out that joint, and I'll pay you another ten to help me. Are you game?”
The chauffeur laughed wisely.
”Am I game? Just watch me.”
Burke lifted Lorna out and turned toward the steps.
”Now, don't leave me in the lurch. Be back in exactly twenty minutes, and I'll be on the job--and we'll make it some job. But, don't let the folks see you standing around, or they'll think I've been up to some game. Her old man will start some shooting. Come back for me.”
The chauffeur chuckled as he climbed into his car and drove away, planning a little himself.
”Any guy that has a girl as swell as that one to live on this street will be good for a hundred dollars before I get through with him,” he muttered as he took a chew of tobacco. ”And I've got the number of that house, too. Her old man will give a good deal to keep this out of the papers. I know my business, even if I didn't go to college!”
As the chauffeur disappeared around the corner, after taking a look toward the steps up which Burke had carried his unconscious burden, the policeman put Lorna down inside the vestibule.
”Now, this is a dangerous game. It means disgrace if I get caught; but it means a pair of broken hearts if this poor girl gets caught,” he thought. ”I'll risk n.o.body coming, and run for another taxi.”
He hastened down the steps and walked around the corner, hurrying toward a big hotel which stood not far from Broadway. Here he found another taxicab.
”There's a young lady sick at the house of one of my friends, and I'm taking her home,” said Burke to the driver. ”Hurry up, please.”
The second automobile sped over the street to the house where Burke had left the girl, and the officer hurried up the steps. He soon reappeared with Lorna in his arms, walked calmly down the steps, and put her into the car.
This time he gave the correct home address, and the taxicab rumbled along on the last stretch of the race.
They pa.s.sed the first car, whose driver was already planning the ways to spend the money which he was to make by a little scientific blackmail.
He was destined to a long wait in front of the brownstone mansion.
After nearly an hour he decided to take things into his own hands.
”I'll get a little now,” he muttered with an accompaniment of profanity. ”That guy can't stall me.”
After ringing the bell for several minutes a very angry caretaker came to the door.
”What do you want, my man?” cried this individual in unmistakable British accents. ”Dash your blooming impudence in waking me up at this time in the morning.”
”I want to get my taxicab fare from the gent that brought the lady here drunk!” declared the chauffeur. ”Are you her father?”
The caretaker shook a fist in his face as he snapped back: