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In line with these apprehensions, the footsteps came no further than the dining-room door; then died out for what seemed full two minutes a pause as illegible to his understanding as their manifest stealth. Why need Shaynon take such elaborate precautions against noises in his own lodgings?
It wouldn't be the first time Brian Shaynon ruined a friend. There was once a family in this town by the name of Sybarite the family of a rich and successful man, associated with Brian Shaynon in a business way. I'm what's left of it, thanks to my father's faith in old Brian's integrity.
And while he stared in wonder, Brian Shaynon seemed suddenly to lose the strength of his limbs. His legs shook beneath him as with a palsy; and then, knees buckling, he tottered and plunged headlong from top to bottom of the staircase. "E's gone," the butler announced.
When idly he glanced that way a second time, the younger Shaynon was alone, and had moved nearer; his countenance impassive, he looked through and beyond P. Sybarite a thought too ostentatiously. But when eventually Marian appeared, he was instant to her side, forestalling even the alert flanking movement of P. Sybarite. "You're quite ready, Marian?"
"Put down that cane, Mr. Brian Shaynon," said P. Sybarite peaceably, "unless you want me to play horse with you in a way to let all New York know how you spend the wee sma' hours!" At the mention of his name Respectability stiffened in dismay. "Damnation!" he cried hoarsely. "Who are you?" "Why, have you forgotten me? Careless of you, Mr. Shaynon.
"He not only saw her," Shaynon interpolated with a malicious sneer, "but I saw him see her and saw him get away with it." "Get away with what?" P. Sybarite asked blankly. "Mr. Shaynon," drawled the detective, "says he saw you lift a di'mond brooch off'n Mrs. Addison Strone, while you was in the elevator."
Or was that the creak of a board beneath a stealthy footstep? If so, it wasn't repeated.... Again, could it be possible his ears did actually detect a sound of human respiration through the keyhole? Was Bayard Shaynon just the other side of that inch-wide pressed-steel barrier, the fire-proof door, cowering in throes of some paralysing fright, afraid to answer the summons?... If so, why?
And he thought of Red November, and wondered what had been the fate of that personage at the hands of the valiant young patrolman. Almost undoubtedly the gunman had escaped arrest.... Shaynon had turned and was striding away toward the Fifth Avenue entrance, when Marian roused P. Sybarite with a word. "Finis," she said, enchanting him with the frank intimacy of her smile.
"That's big talk," commended the detective, apparently a little prepossessed; "and it's all to the good if you can back it up." He rose. "You don't mind my going through your pockets sure?" "Go ahead," P. Sybarite told him shortly. "To save time," Shaynon suggested dispassionately, "you might explore his coat-tail pockets first. It was there that I saw him put away the brooch."
Mute in this limpid comprehension of the circumstances, he sobered thoroughly from sickening consternation; remained in his heart a foul sediment of deadly hatred for Shaynon; to whom he nodded with a significance that wiped the grimace from the man's face as with a sponge. Something clearly akin to fear informed Shaynon's eyes. He sat forward with an uneasy glance at the door.
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