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Page 24
The face of the young man suddenly flashed with pleasure. His
eyes, looking past the burglar to the door, lit with relief.
"There's the chauffeur now!" he cried.
The big burglar for one instant glanced over his right
shoulder.
For months at a time, on Soldiers Field, the young man had
thrown himself at human targets, that ran and dodged and
evaded him, and the hulking burglar, motionless before him,
was easily his victim.
He leaped at him, his left arm swinging like a scythe, and,
with the impact of a club, the blow caught the burglar in the
throat.
The pistol went off impotently; the burglar with a choking
cough sank in a heap on the floor.
The young man tramped over him and upon him, and beat the
second burglar with savage, whirlwind blows. The second
burglar, shrieking with pain, turned to fly, and a fist, that
fell upon him where his bump of honesty should have been,
drove his head against the lintel of the door.
At the same instant from the belfry on the roof there rang out
on the night the sudden tumult of a bell; a bell that told as
plainly as though it clamored with a human tongue, that the
hand that rang it was driven with fear; fear of fire, fear of
thieves, fear of a mad-man with a knife in his hand running
amuck; perhaps at that moment creeping up the belfry stairs.
From all over the house there was the rush of feet and men's
voices, and from the garden the light of dancing lanterns.
And while the smoke of the revolver still hung motionless, the
open door was crowded with half-clad figures. At their head
were two young men. One who had drawn over his night clothes
a serge suit, and who, in even that garb, carried an air of
authority; and one, tall, stooping, weak of face and
light-haired, with eyes that blinked and trembled behind great
spectacles and who, for comfort, hugged about him a gorgeous
kimono. For an instant the newcomers stared stupidly through
the smoke at the bodies on the floor breathing stertorously,
at the young man with the lust of battle still in his face, at
the girl shrinking against the wall. It was the young man in
the serge suit who was the first to move.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"These are burglars," said the owner of the car. "We happened
to be passing in my automobile, and----"
The young man was no longer listening. With an alert,
professional manner he had stooped over the big burglar. With
his thumb he pushed back the man's eyelids, and ran his
fingers over his throat and chin. He felt carefully of the
point of the chin, and glanced up.
"You've broken the bone," he said.
"I just swung on him," said the young man. He turned his
eyes, and suggested the presence of the girl.
At the same moment the man in the kimono cried nervously:
"Ladies present, ladies present. Go put your clothes on,
everybody; put your clothes on."
For orders the men in the doorway looked to the young man with
the stern face.
He scowled at the figure in the kimono.
"You will please go to your room, sir," he said. He stood up,
and bowed to Miss Forbes. "I beg your pardon," he asked, "you
must want to get out of this. Will you please go into the
library?"
He turned to the robust youths in the door, and pointed at the
second burglar.
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