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To have one's world thus suddenly stricken dumb, to be transported orally from the roar of a city to the peace of a woodland or a becalmed sea is certainly astonishing enough. But this silence was particularly terrifying to both McCarthy and Jack Warford, though neither would have been able to analyze the reason for its weirdness. For silence is in reality a composite of many lesser noises.
At the corner, after pushing through a curious crowd, the men separated. Hallowell started for the wharf; Jack Warford for home at Darrow's request. The scientist returned to his own apartments, where he locked himself in and sat for five hours cross-legged on a divan, staring straight ahead of him, doing nothing.
Jack Warford sat with him. Darrow rarely opened his mouth for speech, but smoked slowly a few cigarettes, and rolled many more, which he held unlighted in the corner of his mouth until they dropped to pieces. He watched quietly all that went on; glanced through such messages as came in from Monsieur X, read the papers, and dozed.
He rushed about from one to another, displaying his injured palm to whoever would look. Darrow paid little attention to this gathering crowd. First of all, he scanned a paper he held in his hand; then plunged back again into the blackness. Jack Warford and Hallowell, left together, hesitated uncertainly. "He'll be back," the reporter decided finally, "and he's the man to tie to."
The corridors were cleared of all but a few. Among these were Hallowell and Jack Warford; the former as a reporter, the latter as the reporter's companion. Doctor Knox and Professor Eldridge arrived shortly. After a time Darrow reappeared, sauntering quite calmly from the pall of darkness, as though emerging from behind a velvet curtain.
"Look here! You don't quite get the humor of that. Why, McCarthy loves the name of Warford about the way a yellow dog loves a tin can to his tail." "We'll call on him, just the same," insisted Darrow. "I'm game," said Jack, "but I can tell you the answer right now. No need to walk to the Atlas Building." "I have a notion the Atlas Building is going to be a mighty interesting place," said Darrow.
Prepare within the next three hours to appear before a mightier throne than mine." Percy Darrow, reading this, said to Jack Warford, "It is time to act," and, accompanied by the younger man, quietly left the room. The reader of imagination and no other will read this tale must figure to himself the island of Manhattan during the next two hours.
Catching Darrow unawares, he almost succeeded in getting free. The flash was too brief. He managed only to rap the young man's head rather sharply against a shade-fitting of the window. The outer door jerked open, and Jack Warford leaped into the room, revolver in hand. Darrow called an instant warning. "All right!" he shouted. "Turn on the light, next to you somewhere. Shut the door."
During that time Percy Darrow, apparently insensible to fatigue, had maintained an almost sleepless vigil. His meals Jack Warford brought in to him; he dozed in his chair or on the couch. Never did he appear to do anything. The very persistent quietude of the man ended by making its impression.
You could not be a scientist; you have not the training." "Nor the brains," interposed Helen Warford, a trifle bitterly. "Nor the kind of brains," amended Darrow. "I have enough of that sort myself," he added. He leaned forward, a hunger leaping in the depths of his brown eyes. "Helen," he pleaded, "can't you see how we need each other?"
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