If he had ere this entertained any doubts whatever of the ugly grounds for his fears they were now resolved by recognition of Bayard’s clumsy ruse to keep him both out of the cab and out of the way, while November and his lieutenants executed their infamous commission....

And all that was now ten—­fifteen—­twenty minutes old!  Marian’s car was gone; and if it had not reached the Plaza, the girl was lost, irrevocably lost to the frantic little man with the twinkling red heels and scarlet breeches, sprinting so wildly down Fifth Avenue in the dank, weird dusk that ran before the dawn of that April morning.

Fortunately he hadn’t far to run; else he would certainly have been waylaid or overhauled by some policeman of enquiring turn of mind, anxious (in the way of duty) to learn his reason for such extraordinary haste.

As it was, P. Sybarite managed to make his goal in record time without attracting the attention of more than half a dozen wayfarers; all of whom gave him way and went their own with that complete indifference so distinctly Manhattanesque....

He had emerged from the restaurant building to find the street bare of any sort of hirable conveyance and himself in a fret too exacting to consider walking to the Plaza or taking a street-car thither.  Nothing less than a taxicab—­and that, one with a speed-mad chauffeur—­would satisfy his impatient humour.

And indeed, if there were a grain of truth in his suspicions, formless though in a measure they remained, he had not an instant to lose.

But on the way to the Bizarre from Peter Kenny’s rooms, some freak of a mind superficially preoccupied had caused him to remark, on the south side of Forty-third Street, immediately east of Sixth Avenue, a long rank of buildings which an utilitarian age had humbled from their once proud estate of private stables to the lowlier degree of quarters for motor vehicles both public and private.

Of these one building boasted the blazing electric announcement:  “ALL NIGHT GARAGE.”

Into this last P. Sybarite pelted at the top of his speed and pulled up puffing, to stare nervously round a place gloomy, cavernous, and pungent with fragrance of oil, rubber, and gasoline.  Here and there lonely electric bulbs made visible somnolent ranks of motor-cars.  Out of the shadows behind him, presently, came a voice drawling: 

“You certainly do take on like you’d lost a power of trouble.”

P. Sybarite whirled round as if stung.  The speaker occupied a chair tilted back against the wall, his feet on the rungs, a cigarette smouldering between his lips in open contempt of the regulations of the Fire Department and all other admonitions of ordinary common-sense.

“What can I do for you?” he resumed, nothing about him stirring save eyes that twinkled as they travelled from head to foot of the odd and striking figure P. Sybarite presented as Beelzebub, Knight Errant.