II
THIS is the place, sir,” said the cabman.
Before him was lighted. The door was standing open. The brougham of a surgeon was beside the curb. He walked slowly up the great steps to the door. There was an indescribable something in the air which seemed to presage calamity; there were sounds as of persons hurrying with some desperate matter.
As Carper put up his hand to touch the bell, two men came out into the shadow of the hall.
“It is a bad case of acute mania,” one was saying. “I have given him two hypodermics of morphine, and he is still raving like a drunken sailor.”
Carper's hand dropped to his side. He turned slowly and passed down the steps into the street. He had not been noticed by the busy surgeons.
Carper stepped out. At the curb he stopped for a moment and looked up and down the avenue. Well, it was justice. For seven years he had flown the black flag of piracy. Among all the buccaneers of the street, the hand of none had been heavier, and the brain of none had been keener than his own. Every man who had passed up a prisoner on to the deck of his galleon, had walked the plank. It was now his turn. It was justice.
Carper spoke to the cabman. Then he stepped in and closed the door.
The man of last resort was probably gone. There was now no resort but to the steel thing on the table.