The Early Ayn Rand

He jumped up and rushed to her. She threw her arms around him and clung to him, trembling, making him fall on his knees by the side of her bed.

"Oh!... I heard a noise... as though somebody was moving in the hall!" she whispered with a terror that looked almost perfectly genuine.

Her blanket was half thrown off and she clung to him, trembling, frightened, helpless. His hands clasped her nightgown, and the body under the nightgown, and he felt her heart beating under his fingers.

"There's no one there... What are you afraid of... Jinx?" he whispered.

"Oh!" she breathed. "Oh, I'm afraid the police might come!"

Laury was surprised to see that he was trembling when he returned to his kitchen and that it had cost him a hard effort to return there.

"I wish," he thought, closing his eyes, "I wish the police would never come here... and for more reasons than one!"

------V-----

"Extray!... Extray-ay!"

The sun was shining so gaily in the sky and in Laury's eyes, on this following morning, that he did not pay any particular attention to the ominous roar bursting suddenly in the street under the city room windows. The sky was blue and Laury's desk at the window looked like a square of gold. He had won back Mr. Scraggs' favor by his brilliant story on the mysterious personality of Damned Dan, in the morning number. He was writing another article now, and the cubs around him looked respectfully at the great journalist at work.

So when the unexpected roar of yelling voices thundered in the street, proclaiming some eventful news, Laury was not disturbed and only wondered dimly what the Globe could have an extra for.

But he did not have much time for meditation. He was summoned hurriedly to Mr. Scraggs' desk. His heart fell when he saw the Editor's face. He knew at once that something had happened, something frightful.

"What excuse have you got to offer?" Mr. Scraggs asked with sinister calm.

"Excuse... for what?" Laury muttered, steadying his voice.

"I had an impression that you were supposed to cover the Winford case, young man?"

"Well..."

"Then how do you account for the fact," Mr. Scraggs roared, "that a punk, lousy, measly paper like the Globe gets such news ahead of us?" And he waved a Globe extra into Laury's face.

"News, Mr. Scraggs? News on the Winford case?"

"And how!... Or perhaps you wouldn't call it news that Winford received a second letter from the kidnapper?"

"What?!"

"You heard me! And the letter orders him to deliver the money tonight!"

Laury saw stars swimming between him and Mr. Scraggs. He seized the extra, almost tearing it in half; and he read the great news. Mr. Winford had received this morning a second message from Damned Dan, fixing the time and place for the ransom money to be delivered. Mr. Winford had decided to obey, for, he had declared: "I would rather search for my money than for my daughter." Therefore, he had refused to make public all of the letter and the place appointed for the meeting. The Globe's reporter was only able to state that the kidnapper's letter was written with a pencil on a piece of brown wrapping paper; and that it started with:

Deer Ser enuff monkay biznes. Come across with the dough and make it pretti darn snappi or I'l get sor and wat'l hapen to yur gal then will be plenti...

It was signed:

Veri trooli yur's Dammd Dan

Laury swayed on his feet, and Mr. Scraggs wondered at the color of his face.

"It's... it's impossible!" he muttered hoarsely. "It's impossible!"

"What's impossible? The Globe getting it first and you asleep on your job?"

"But... but it can't be, Mr. Scraggs! Oh, God! It can't be!"

"Just why can't it be?"

Laury straightened himself slowly, straight and tense like a piano string.

"There's something happening somewhere, Mr. Scraggs!" he said, white as a sheet. "Something horrible!"

"There sure is," answered Mr. Scraggs, "and it's right here, in my city room, from which you're going to be kicked out, head first, if you ever miss a piece of news like this again!"

Eight hours passed after this conversation; eight desperate hours that Laury spent ransacking the town in search of some clue to that inexplicable development. He was too astounded to be quite conscious of what he was doing. He wondered if he was not going insane — the thing seemed so ridiculously incredible. He was searching frantically for something that would give him the faintest suspicion of an explanation.

He interviewed Mr. Winford and saw the first half of the letter on brown wrapping paper; he interviewed the police; he went around town actually hunting for news on the Winford case, looking for — Damned Dan! The idea made him laugh — with a gnashing of teeth.