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She felt the trunk lifted over the men's heads, and the whirring of an automobile told her that she was being placed in the machine. "Well, you didn't care much for your pet room this time, Mr. Wrentz," smiled the clerk as Wrentz asked for his bill. "Indeed I did, but a message has called me back to New York."
Through her mind, in piteous pageant, flashed thoughts of home, of Harry, of even Raymond Owen. There was a great loneliness in the hour of doom. But it would be over quickly. She shut her eyes tight and clenched her tied hands as the trunk was taken from the machine and placed upon the ground. "Open it," commanded Wrentz. "I don't want her to die in there."
Wrentz, too, watched it, from his hiding place on the top of the cliff. But his heart was not sick. In a moment, he was sure, his work would be accomplished for him, and his employer would be rid of Pauline Marvin in a way that could reflect no blame on any one. Blount started up the cliff.
A low, guttural, snarling sound a sound hardly human accompanied the footsteps. He had reached the bottom of the cliff a half mile from where Pauline had found her perilous shelter. Peering up through the bushes, his astonishment and horror were a match for the astonishment and joy of Wrentz.
"Dead," repeated Pauline in a low tone. "How horrible to go out of life a moment after you had tried to commit murder." "It's not his first," Burgess said coolly. "We've been after him and his gang these six months. It was Wrentz, Jo, and I made a haul of papers that'll get somebody into trouble." "Oh, don't hurt the young one," cried Pauline. "He tried to help me." "Rocco?
Wrentz, watching from above for he was afraid of the voices on the tracks, below and had not followed Pauline watched with pleasure as she crawled to the side of the car, and, after two failures, managed to drag herself through the high door. She sank exhausted. Gradually, however, her strength returned. Her mind recovered from the dazing experiences of the last few hours.
Her photograph stared at her from the front page of every daily paper even the glasses and thick veil she wore to conceal her identity could not soften the conspicuous pictures. Newsboys called her name, and the gorilla story, Wrentz, and Blount's names, together every passenger in the car, it seemed to her, men, women, and children, were discussing her.
"With pleasure but don't you think some one ought to accompany you?" "To Philadelphia? Nonsense. It's just like crossing the street. Please, Owen, don't you begin to worry about every little thing I do." "Very well," he laughed. As soon as she was gone he selected a time table, and scanned the train list. Then he took up the telephone and called a number. "Hello, Wrentz?" "This is Owen. It worked.
"What harm as long as she is to die? Dead women tell no more tales than dead men." "I will name all names that are to be spoken," declared Wrentz. "Well, he of the name that is unspoken at least he did say that we must have no delays. We want to earn our money as well as you, Louis remember that." "Come, come," he said. "This is no way to be arguing among friends.
The choking gag, the cutting bonds, the stifling trunk in which the knife of Wrentz had cut but a few air holes these were as nothing to the agony of her spirit the agony of a lingering journey toward a certain but mysterious end.
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