Privacy, I think, is essential to the perfect adjustment
of our future relations. There are one or two inexplicable features--"
The eyes of the other met his with a level glance of desperate
hostility.
With an undisciplined flash of temper, Carl brutally clubbed his
assailant into insensibility with the revolver butt and dragged him
heavily to the tonneau of his car, throbbing unheeded in the darkness.
Having assured himself of his guest's continued docility by the
sinister adjustment of a handkerchief, an indifferent rag or so from
the repair kit and a dirty rope, he covered the motionless figure
carelessly with a robe and sprang to the wheel, whistling softly. With
a throb, the great car leaped, humming, to the road.
At midnight the lights of Harlem lay ahead. The ride from the hills,
three hours of storm and squirting gravel, had been made with the
persistent whir and drone of a speeding engine. But once had it rested
black and silent in a lonely road of dripping trees, while the driver
hurried into a roadside tavern and telephoned.
Now, with a purring sigh as a bridge loomed ahead, the car slackened
and stopped. Carl slowly lighted a cigarette. At the end of the
bridge a straggler struck a match and flung it lightly in the river,
the disc of his cigar a fire-point in the shadows.
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