The Stolen Singer | Page 9

business affairs, securing, among other things, several
hundred dollars, which he put in his money-belt. About the middle of
the afternoon he left his hotel, engaged a taxicab and started for
Riverside. The late summer day was fine, with the afternoon haze
settling over river and town. He watched the procession of carriages,
the horse-back riders, the people afoot, the children playing on the
grass, with a feeling of comradeship. Was he not also tasting
freedom--a lord of the earth? His gaze traveled out to the river, with the
glimmer here and there of a tug-boat, a little steamer, or the white sail
of a pleasure craft. The blood of some seagoing ancestor stirred in his
veins, and he thrilled at the thought of the days to come when his prow
should be headed offshore.
The taxicab had its limitations, and Hambleton suddenly became
impatient of its monotonous slithering along the firm road. Telling the
driver to follow him, he descended and crossed to where Cathedral
Parkway switches off. He walked briskly, feeling the tonic of the sea
air, and circled the cathedral, where workmen were lounging away after
their day's toil. The unfinished edifice loomed up like a giant skeleton
of some prehistoric era, and through its mighty open arches and
buttresses Jim saw fleecy clouds scudding across the western sky, A
stone saint, muffled in burlap, had just been swung up into his windy
niche, but had not yet discarded his robes of the world. Hambleton was
regarding the shapeless figure with mild interest, wondering which

saint of the calendar could look so grotesque, when a sound drew his
attention sharply to earth. It was a small sound, but there was
something strange about it. It was startling as a flash in a summer sky.
Besides the workmen, there was no living thing in sight on the hillside
except his own taxicab, swinging slowly into the avenue at that
moment, and a covered motor-car getting up speed a square away. Even
as the car approached, Hambleton decided that the strange sound had
proceeded from its ambushed tonneau; and it was, surely, a human
voice of distress. He stepped forward to the curb. The car was upon him,
then lumbered heavily and swiftly past. But on the instant of its passing
there appeared, beneath the lifted curtain and quite near his own face,
the face of the singer of yesterday; and from pale, agonized lips, as if
with, dying breath, she cried, "Help, help!"
Hambleton knew her instantly, although the dark abundance of her hair
was almost lost beneath hat and flowing veil, and the bright, humorous
expression was blotted out by fear. He stood for a moment rooted to the
curb, watching the dark mass of the car as it swayed down the hill.
Then he beckoned sharply to his driver, met the taxicab half way, and
pointed to the disappearing machine.
"Quick! Can you overtake it?"
"I'd like nothing better than to run down one o' them Dook machines!"
said the driver.
CHAPTER III
MIDSUMMER MADNESS
The driver of the taxicab proved to be a sound sport.
Five minutes of luck, aided by nerve, brought the two machines
somewhat nearer together. The motor-car gained in the open spaces, the
taxicab caught up when it came to weaving its way in and out and
dodging the trolleys. At the frequent moments when he appeared to be
losing the car, Hambleton reflected that he had its number, which might

lead to something. At the Waldorf the car slowed up, and the cab came
within a few yards. Hambleton made up his mind at that instant that he
had been mistaken in his supposition of trouble threatening the lady,
and looked momently to see her step from the car into the custody of
those starched and lacquered menials who guard the portals of
fashionable hotels.
But it was not so. A signal was interchanged between the occupants of
the car and some watcher in the doorway, and the car sped on.
Hambleton, watching steadily, wondered!
"If she is being kidnapped, why doesn't she make somebody hear?
Plenty of chance. They couldn't have killed her--that isn't done."
And yet his heart smote him as he remembered the terror and distress
written on that countenance and the cry for help.
"Something was the matter," memory insisted. "There they go west;
west Tenth, Alexander Street, Tenth Avenue--"
The car lumbered on, the cab half a block, often more, in the rear,
through endless regions of small shops and offices huddled together
above narrow sidewalks, through narrow and winding streets paved
with cobblestones and jammed with cars and trucks, squeezing past
curbs where dirty children sat playing within a few inches of
death-dealing wheels. Hambleton wondered what kept them from being
killed by hundreds daily, but