Bardin moved swiftly. In spite of his size he handled himself well, like a boxer. To the watching girl — taut as a bow-string, eyes wide, and scarcely breathing — it seemed that his weight alone must break through Phineas Spear’s almost negligent guard. To Cara, the storm of stabbing, probing lefts that Bardin threw furiously were all landing. But Bardin knew better! He felt the blocking elbow, the lean wiry shoulder that caught every blow he started.
His attack shifted. Feinting viciously he unleashed a poised and waiting right, crossed it with all the weight of a heavy body behind it. And Cara Collin gasped, her hand at her throat. For a split second, she shut her eyes, opened them again.
The whistling grunt had been Bardin’s. It was Bardin who was down, or almost down. Half through the doorway, knees sagging, he hung on Spear’s left arm, looked up into mocking, glinting eyes. There had been no effort to block that blow. The chin at which it was aimed had moved backward two inches — and Bardin had literally thrown himself out the door. Surprise — then something akin to fear — flashed in his face.
Phineas Spear drawled: “He can hand it out! Now let’s see if he can take it.” And he heaved suddenly. Bardin reeled upright, staggered back and slammed into Cara Collin’s desk.
Spear hit him twice — light blows — fast. Incredibly fast! They stung rather than hurt, stung the man back into roaring fury. Again he charged and Phineas Spear’s lithe body recoiled in the crouch of a panther — sprang forward and in behind the ripping right hand that met Bardin’s jaw with the dull thud of a maul. And the man dropped where he stood. Dropped on his face and lay still.
For an instant there was quiet. Cara Collin’s voice quivered a little, but she smiled when she said:
“Th-thank you, Phineas.”
“It was a pleasure!” he bowed, gently mocking.
He grinned at his bloody knuckles, then stooped and caught Bardin’s coat collar. The girl watched him, still deathly pale, but in eyes the flame of thrilled delight. She heard the street door close, then Spear came back. He sat on her desk.
“Y’know, Cara,” he mused, “Canada has a swell climate this time o’ year! Banff — Lake Louise — you’ve no idea! We could use some good vacation copy on the woman’s page. Clothes, sports, local color — feminine viewpoint.”
“No!” she clipped, “I won’t go, unless—”
“What?”
“Unless you go, too, Phineas!”
“Okay,” he sighed. “At least I can take you home. That’s where you’re going to stay unless there’s somebody else here at the office with you.”
“But—”
“I said yes!”
He said goodnight ten minutes later. After he had left her, when he was alone again on the pleasant, maple-bordered street, his humorous half-smile faded. Cara was probably in no immediate danger, but even though he’d known she would refuse, he wished she had accepted that vacation offer. The fat, he reasoned grimly, was in the fire. Bardin was the sort who would never rest until that personal humiliation had been avenged ten times over. And to his satisfaction!
What form would that take? He could not erase from his memory the mad, black fury that had raged in Bardin’s eyes.
A neon Western Union sign caught his glance and Spear turned in there. The telegram he sent cost an astonishing amount for one telegram. It was long, addressed to a man named Jake Wolcott. He told the girl to rush it in all the ways he could think of, then left and continued down Bank Street to Court Avenue. The County Jail loomed on his left, but Spear passed it without a glance, continued on downhill to the river and darkened warehouses. If he were, by any chance, being tailed, it shouldn’t be hard to find it out — and lose it — in the deserted alleys of the water-front.
Fifteen minutes later a dim and cautious figure approached the jail, from the rear, across a rubbish-littered vacant lot. Ahead of him was a wall twelve feet high topped with broken glass set jaggedly in cement. Phineas Spear slid a light rope from where it lay hidden under his vest, coiled around the curve of a bent, hook-like metal rod. Like a gigantic fish-hook with the rope fastened to its shank. The curve and point of the hook was carefully wrapped in friction tape.
For a silent minute Spear hugged the base of the wall, watching, listening. From beyond came the muted wail of a violin — haunting, nostalgic. He straightened suddenly. The hook shot upward and caught on the wall top, the grating of steel on glass and concrete muffled by the tape. Tentatively Spear shook the rope. The hook settled more firmly. He pulled hard and it sank home. His coat came off. Holding it in his teeth, he went up the wall hand over hand. At the top his folded coat protected him against knife-like points of glass and he threw a leg across, hung thus while he turned the hook and rope inside. Then he slid down into the dismal yard of the jail.
The violin was the only sound. Old Parkes had worn gloves at work to save his fingers for his violin! Phineas Spear smiled and followed the sound to the third lighted window from the end. The ledge was scarcely a foot above the tips of his reaching fingers. He crouched, sprang upward and hung precariously until he grasped solid bars in a firm grip. The violin stopped abruptly at his third light tap.
Abel Parkes peered blankly toward the window, his bow poised — and Spear cursed that sudden cessation of the music. Why didn’t he have sense enough to play on! Slowly the old man rose and approached the window. He raised it quietly enough and sank to his knees, his eyes level with Spear’s strain-distorted face. Hoarsely Abel Parkes faltered:
“Who is it?”
“Go on playing, man!” he said fiercely, “or I’ll be in there with you! It’s Phineas Spear — you know, the Blade!”
A quavering discord was torn from the violin as his bow crossed it. Then it sang again, softly, plaintively. Abel Parkes’ lips moved. “Phineas Spear? Oh yes! I remember you. But I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill my friend. They try to make me say so — for that other paper — but I cannot! Not even for you, Phineas Spear. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t.”
Spear’s face contorted with added effort as he let go one hand and reached in his vest pocket. He laid the folded letter Pierson had given him — the retainer — on the window sill. He got a pen, unscrewed the top with his teeth and laid that beside it.
“Listen, Parkes!” he panted, “I know you didn’t kill Southard. I can prove it.”
“You... can!” the music faltered again. Watery, red-rimmed eyes lighted dully, “Then why...?”
“Don’t talk! Play — listen. Horstmann wasn’t trying to help you. He didn’t want to prove you innocent, but Randall Pierson does.”
“Randall Pierson,” he breathed, “wants to help me?”
“That paper” — Spear’s face was purpling slowly — “says that you consent to Pierson’s acting for you as your attorney. Read it. Sign it. Drop it down to me!” And he vanished.
It was almost as though the violin were part of his emotions. He played slowly, tensely, while he must have been reading. Then the tempo quickened, the music became ragged, raucous — stopped! A white square of paper fluttered to the ground and Phineas Spear crouched as footsteps grated on the gravel of the yard.
The guard almost passed — then paused.
His coat! The coat that he had left on the wall-top! It broke that serrated skyline, broke it with a bulge that looked mountain high to Spear. How did it look to the patrolling guard? The man turned toward it, toward the dangling, invisible rope that was Spear’s only means of escape. But before he reached it a whirlwind hit him from behind, left him groaning faintly in a heap upon the ground. When he recovered and rose shakily, the bulge on the wall was gone.