The motor-cycle was behaving excellently. As Pete began to get the feel of his steed he experimented a bit with the throttle, twisting the hand grip that controlled it farther and farther, until the machine responded with a burst of speed that alarmed the lady in the bathtub. She clung to the edges of the car and shut her eyes against the wind, bracing her feet with the instinctive effort of trying to apply brakes.

Pete knew only in a general way the direction of the main road, which he was seeking. When they emerged from the private grounds of the gentleman who owned the last bottle, he turned the car in what seemed to be the proper course and raced along a road that was bordered with villas. It ended at a cross-road, where he was forced to make a change of direction. Then, for the next five minutes, he was alternately covering short stretches of straightaway and turning corners. The residential section devoted to summer dwellers seemed to Pete to have been provided with streets that were designed on the plan of a labyrinth. It baffled escape.

They passed people on walks and cars in the roadways, passed them at a nervous speed. Mary Wayne was huddled as low in the bathtub as she could squeeze herself, but Pete was astride a saddle in the open, and he had an annoying sense of conspicuity. He doubted if the ordinary citizen of Larchmont would accept his pink-striped pajamas with the complete equanimity that had characterized his late host. The silk garments wrapped themselves tightly around his shins, but streamed out in the rear like pennants in a gale. The rush of air sculptured his high-priced haberdashery until he resembled the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

Mary reached both hands to her head with a little cry, but too late. The picture hat had been snatched by a gust and went sailing into a hedge.

"Can't stop!" he yelled. "Mine went long ago."

She shook her head to signify that she did not want him to stop.

Still the labyrinth held them. One of its trick passages brought them into a cul de sac, where he was forced to slow down and turn in his tracks. A man on the sidewalk shouted at him, but Pete did not answer. Mary huddled closer in her refuge.

They turned another corner and came to a dead stop, with a screeching of brakes, in order to avoid collision with a touring-car approaching in the opposite direction. The touring-car also stopped. Its driver uttered an exclamation, and an instant afterward switched on a spotlight. Mary shrieked as the merciless beam fell upon her. Somebody in the car tittered.

"When did they turn the club dance into a masquerade?" asked a voice.

"Ages ago," answered Pete promptly. "Swing your car; you're on the wrong side of the road."

There was more laughter; the spotlight still held its victims.

"He looks like the Sultan of Sulu," commented the voice behind the spotlight.

"Running away with Marie Antoinette," said a second voice.

And then, in a sharp, feminine treble:

"Jack, look at that thing on her shoulders! Why, it's just exactly like my——"

Mary hid her face and shuddered. Pete slipped in the clutch and made a reckless detour that came within an ace of landing the side-car in a ditch. They shot away again with an echo of excited voices in their ears.

"We've got to get out of here quick!" shouted Pete. "I think they've got our number."

Mary knew it to a certainty. No woman who owned the piece of lingerie that graced her shoulders would ever fail to recognize it.

"Try the road to the left," she urged, as she looked back. "I think they're turning the car around."

He acted on the suggestion, for want of anything better, and shot into a new road that possessed the grateful advantage of poorer illumination. Fear of pursuit caused him to forsake it after a few hundred yards, and after that he spent several minutes dodging into one street after another, until he felt that the touring car must have abandoned pursuit. Every time they passed a street light he accelerated speed, regardless of all considerations save a resolve not to linger in the illuminated places.

Mary was grim. She had abandoned hope of ever escaping from the hated town; she felt that she was the helpless prisoner of a nightmare, unable to loose the invisible shackles. They would either be dashed to pieces or fall afoul of the law, and between these alternatives she attempted to make no choice; one was as unhappy as the other. Yet during all this maddening and futile whirl she found a corner of her mind sufficiently detached from imminent perils to give its entire attention to the hating of Bill Marshall. He, and he alone, had done this thing, she told herself over and over again. Oh, how she hated him!

And then came sudden liberation from the labyrinth. They shot out of a narrow lane upon what was unmistakably the main road, missed a juggernaut limousine by inches, careened sickeningly as their machine straightened out in the direction of the city, and then gathered speed to put behind them forever the place of their undoing.

"We're all clear, now," he called, bending his head toward her. "Making out all right?"

"Go on," was her only answer.

There was but one goal in the mind of Pete Stearns—the Marshall mansion in lower Fifth Avenue. It was of no avail to stop short of that; they had no money, no friends, no spare wardrobe elsewhere. A return to Larchmont was not for an instant to be considered. Probably the Sunshine was back in the harbor, looking for them. Well, let Bill Marshall look—and then worry when he did not find them. The same thought was in the mind of Mary Wayne; she prayed that Bill might now be in a frenzy of fright and anxiety.

In a general way, Pete knew the main road; if he had not, the volume of traffic easily served as a guide. They passed anywhere from a dozen to twenty cars every mile, and inasmuch as speed was their one available refuge from curious eyes, Pete employed it. It would have been better for peace of mind to make their way to the city by sequestered roads, but he did not know all the byways and turnings of the Westchester highway system, and there was the risk of getting lost in unfamiliar paths. The labyrinth of Larchmont had been a sufficient lesson in that.

The evening was warm, yet Pete found that two sets of silken pajamas were none too much for comfort, for the motor-cycle created its own little gale. Mary sat crouched in her lingerie, trying desperately to keep everything in place, yet discovering every little while that a homeward-bound pennant of filmy stuff was whipping the air half a dozen feet behind her.

New Rochelle flew past them in a blur of light. Pelham Manor came and went in a flash. Mount Vernon was little more than a brief burst of illumination.

"Safety first," whispered Pete to himself. "That means speed."

They were crossing the Harlem, still at a pace that was barred by all law save the primitive one to which alone they held allegiance—self-preservation. Riverside Drive! Should they risk it or seek less traveled paths?

"Stick to the Drive," urged the guiding spirit.

Pete stuck to it. Better to come to grief boldly on the highway of pleasure and fashion than to meet disaster ignominiously along some furtive route. But even the desperate urge of speed could not be completely satisfied now. There was the summer evening's traffic to be considered, and often it slowed them to a maddeningly moderate pace.

Mary was aware of the fact that they were not without observers. With another driver she felt that her own costume would have escaped notice; she was making herself as small as possible, wrapped tightly in her raiment. But Pete Stearns, astride the saddle, flaunted himself. He could not help it. The coat of purple and green shone in the city's glare like the plumage of a peacock. As for the trousers striped in salmon pink, they shrieked like a siren.

People in cars stared and turned to stare again. People atop the buses gesticulated and waved. People on the sidewalks halted in their tracks and blinked. A million eyes, it seemed to Mary, were boring into her from all sides. Oh, wait till she laid hands on Bill Marshall!

Fifth Avenue! The traffic increased; the pace slackened perforce. Mary gripped the edges of the car and closed her eyes. Why had they risked it? Why hadn't she urged him to seek a hiding place until long past midnight? Too late now. The machine came to a stop. She opened her eyes long enough to photograph the awful picture on her mind.

Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street—with the east and west traffic holding the right of way! A bus towered above them on the curb side. A millionaire touring-car flanked them on the left. Ahead were most of the automobiles in the world; of that she was certain. She did not dare to look behind. Her eyes were shut again, but her ears were open. She could hear voices, laughter, a screeching of horns. Somebody flung a question; a dozen followed. And Pete Stearns was flinging answers! Oh, why didn't he keep still?

The traffic moved again, and with it the little chariot that had become their ark of preservation. Mary felt it bumping across the tracks on Forty-Second Street. Somebody shouted; she knew without looking that it was a policeman. There was a shrill whistle. The motor-cycle plunged forward.

"Hold fast!" yelled Pete, bending over. "That guy wants us, but he'll have to step some. No more traffic stops for mine!"

Just what they did after that Mary never knew. Nor was Pete himself particularly clear. They lurched, swayed, dodged; they scraped mudguards right and left; they shot behind, in front of, and around automobiles that were stupidly content to keep within the law; they scattered pedestrians; they ran past traffic semaphores that were set against them; they mocked cross-town trolleys by dashing across their paths; and all this to a constant din of shouting people and piercing police whistles.

The home of Miss Caroline Marshall stood on a corner, and the entrance to the garden and stable yard in the rear was on the side street. As Pete swerved from the avenue, Mary opened her eyes again and gasped incredulously. They were home!

He had leaped from the saddle, crossed the sidewalk, tried the tall, iron gate that barred the driveway and was back again before she could move her cramped body from the position into which she had twisted it.

"Gate's locked!" he cried. "We haven't any keys. Got to climb the wall. Hurry!"

Saying which, he seized her by an arm and dragged her out of the little bathtub. The brick wall that flanked the Marshall garden on the street side stood about seven feet in height. Pete reached for the top, chinned himself, and squirmed astride it.

"Gimme your hands!"

Mary lifted them, felt them seized, and found herself slowly rising from the sidewalk. For Bill Marshall she would have been a feather; for Pete Stearns she was a burden. He gritted his teeth and lifted until his muscles cracked. Inch by inch he raised her. Mary tried to dig her toes into the bricks, but they offered no foothold; all she accomplished was to tangle her feet in the lingerie. Two people across the street stopped to stare. Pete sighted them and gave another grim hoist.

Then victory. She was sitting on top of the wall, swinging her feet on the garden side, as he leaped down into a flower-bed and reached for her.

"Oh! The rose-bushes!" she cried, as he caught her and deposited her in the flower-bed.

"Damn the roses!"

"But it's me! The thorns!"

"Forget it."

Some of her raiment was clinging to Aunt Caroline's treasured plants as she stepped painfully out on the grass.

"Now to get into the house," he said briskly. "We'll have to break in. There isn't a soul home."

"Thank goodness," murmured Mary.

The house was dark, but never had Mary seen it when it looked so friendly and sheltering. The nightmare was over. They were really home!

Pete ran to the kitchen entrance. Locked, and undoubtedly the stout bar on the inside was also in place. It was not worth while to try the window-catches, for even if he were able to raise a sash there were stout steel bars through which they could not pass. He went to the cellar entrance, turned the knob in the door, and threw his weight against it. Nothing budged.

He stepped back on the lawn and made a survey of the rear elevation of the house. All of the windows that lacked bars were beyond his reach or that of any ordinary climber. If he could find a ladder—— He ran back to the stable, but discovered it to be as stoutly resistant to intrusion as the house itself.

Mary beckoned to him.

"I should think you could climb up on the wall," she said, pointing, "right where it joins the house, and then make a jump for that nearest window."

Pete looked at her severely.

"Do you think I'm a trapeze performer? Do you want me to break a leg?"

Mary measured the jump with her eye.

"Mr. Marshall could do it," she said.

"Rot!"

"But he could. And he'd be willing to try, too."

Pete's glance had turned into a glare.

"There's gratitude for you! That's a fine thing to throw up in my face. Just because I'm not an overgrown brute you think it's a lot of fun to stand there making dares."

"If you think I'm having any fun," she said sharply, "you're tremendously wrong. I'm all stiff and scratched up from those rose-thorns—and I'm hungry. And thirsty! And Mr. Marshall may be large—but he is not an overgrown brute."

"Oh, that's it, is it? You're singing another tune. The last time you mentioned him it was in connection with murder, I think."

"Never mind. He could get in that window, just the same."

Pete eyed her for an instant, then walked toward the garden wall.

"Wait till I'm lying crushed at your feet," he said bitterly. "You're driving me to suicide."

"Pooh!" said Mary.

He climbed the wall and tested his reach in the direction of the window. The sill was at least a foot beyond the tips of his fingers.

"Jump for it," she said from below. "It looks easy."

"Does it?" he said scornfully. "You ought to see it from here."

"I can see it perfectly well. I could do it myself."

Pete Stearns marveled. Why had she turned on him thus? Had he not been playing the hero since mid-afternoon? Had he not brought her out of the jaws of Larchmont and into the sanctuary of Aunt Caroline's back yard? And now she taunted him, mocked him, dared him to take a senseless hazard.

"Are you going to stand on that wall all night?" she demanded. "Everybody in the street can see you."

He turned and faced the window desperately. He stepped back a pace and viewed it again. He considered the relative advantages of a standing or a running jump and decided upon the former. He crouched. He straightened and again measured the distance with his eye.

"Well?" asked the pitiless voice from below.

"Oh, give me a chance to figure it out," he retorted. "Stop staring at me. You make me nervous."

So Mary looked away. She even walked away. Her steps carried her to an asphalt driveway, where she paused, staring down at a metal disk that lay directly in front of her. It was about two feet in diameter, and fitted closely into an iron rim that was embedded in the pavement. She recognized the thing instantly. It was the cover of the coal hole. Aunt Caroline had objected to coal wagons unloading at her curb; and being the possessor of a back yard, into which wagons could be driven, she had built a chute from that point directly into the bins. Mary remembered that she had seen ton after ton of coal poured down that very hole.

She turned and glanced toward the adventurer on the wall. He was still staring up at the window, now crouching, now standing erect, now advancing, now retreating, but never leaping. With an exclamation of disdain, she stooped and laid hold of the cover of the coal chute.

As she tugged at the handle it moved. She applied both hands to the task. The disk came out of its rim and she dragged it clear of the aperture. She glanced downward into the depths. She might as well have closed her eyes, for the darkness within that coal chute was total. It was spooky. Yet her common sense told her that there was nothing spooky about it; it was merely a coal chute that sloped at an easy angle into a cellar bin.

She looked again to see what progress Pete had made; she could not observe that he had made any. He was still standing on top of the wall, making calculations and having visions of a little white cot in an emergency ward.

"He's afraid," she said. "I'm not!"

But she was, despite the brave boast—she was dreadfully afraid. Yet fear did not prevent her from sitting down and letting her feet dangle into the hole. Of course, she could summon Pete Stearns and bid him plunge into the Stygian shaft. But she scorned that; she was minded to show him what a little woman could do.

He was still fiddling on top of the wall when she glanced up.

"Oh, don't bother," she called. "If you're so afraid——"

"I'm not. I'm just taking precautions. If you'll leave me alone a minute——"

"I'm tired of waiting. You don't seem to be able to make up what you call your mind."

"If you'd stop talking to me——"

He turned to glare down at her.

Zip!

She was gone. He blinked rapidly and stared again. What—— How—— He rubbed his eyes. Only an instant before she was there; she was sitting in the middle of the driveway. Her white figure had been perfectly distinct; there could not be a possible doubt about it. And then the earth swallowed her!

Hastily he scrambled down from the top of the wall and ran across the yard. The open coal chute yawned at his feet. He stooped and listened. There was no sound. He called into the depths. There was no answer.

"The son of a gun!" he muttered in an awed whisper.

He was still standing there, dully contemplating the hole in the earth, when a flicker of light caused him to lift his head. She was in the kitchen. He heard the lifting of the bar and the turning of the key in the lock, followed by a rattle of bolts. As he approached the door it opened.

Mary Wayne looked as weird as the witch of Endor. Her white robes were streaked with black. Her face was smeared with coal dust; her hands, her hair. Out of a sooty countenance gleamed two dangerous gray eyes.

"You coward!" she said. "See what you've done!"

"But if you'd waited——"

"You've just made me ruin the loveliest things I ever wore in all my life. Look at this peignoir. It's ripped, it's torn, it's—— Oh, don't stand there! I'll slam the door in a second, and then you can stay out or else come in by way of the coal bin."

Pete entered meekly and closed the door behind him. Single file they mounted the back stairs that led to the servants' quarters.