"Good-night!" he laughed, then stepped back, waved a hand to the chauffeur—"Go!"
The taxicab shot away like a racing hound unleashed. With a sigh of relief Lanyard gave himself wholly to the question of his own salvation.
The rank of waiting motor-cars offered no hope: all but one were private town cars and limousines, operated by liveried drivers. A solitary roadster at the head of the line tempted and was rejected; even though it had no guardian chauffeur, something of which he could not be sure, he would be overhauled before he could start the motor and get the knack of its gear-shift mechanism. Even now Au Printemps was in frantic eruption, its doors ejecting violently a man at each wild revolution.
Down Broadway an omnibus of the Fifth Avenue line lumbered, at no less speed than twenty miles an hour, without passengers and sporting an illuminated "Special" sign above the driver's seat.
Dashing out into the roadway, Lanyard launched himself at the narrow platform of the unwieldy vehicle and, in spite of a yell of warning from the guard, landed safely on the step and turned to repel boarders.
But his manœuvre had been executed too swiftly and unexpectedly. The group before Au Printemps huddled together in ludicrous inaction, as if stunned. Then one raged through it, plying vicious elbows. As he paused against the light Lanyard identified unmistakably the silhouette of Ekstrom.
So that one had, after all, escaped the net of his own treachery!
