The Early Ayn Rand

"The news? Oh, sure, the news!... I got it! Most sensational news, Mr. Scraggs! Winford came to the meeting place and — Damned Dan was not there to meet him!"

Such a dead silence fell over the city room that Laury looked around, surprised.

"I'd like to know," Mr. Scraggs said slowly with the tense, shivering calm of a fury hard to restrain, "I'd like to know where the hell you are getting your news from!"

"Why... why, what's the matter?"

"What's the matter? You blockheaded, half-witted, confounded idiot! Nothing's the matter, except that the Globe came out half an hour ago with the news and..."

"Oh, well..."

"... and Damned Dan did come to the meeting, you skunk of a reporter!"

"He...came?"

"Where have you been all that time, you lazy cub? Sure, he came, but he didn't bring the girl, so he got one grand in advance and promised to bring her later!"

Laury had no strength to make a comment or an answer; he stood, his eyes closed, his arms drooping helplessly.

"In fact," Mr. Scraggs added, "he promised to bring her in an hour!"

"What?" Laury jumped forward as though he was going to choke Mr. Scraggs.

"I'd like to know," Mr. Scraggs cried in furious amazement, "what the hell is the meaning of your strange… Where are you going?! Hey! Stop! Come here at once! Where are you going?"

But Laury did not hear him. He was flying madly down the stairs, out into the street, into his sports car...

His apartment was empty when he got there. Jinx's perfume was still lingering in the air. A pair of adorable little slippers was thrown into a chair. The sofa cushions were still crumpled where they had been sitting together...

He found a note on his desk.

Deer partner I changed my mind. Wy shood I wait fer a haff toomoro wenn I can hav oil of it too-nyt? I'l giv yu a litle of it later fer a consolashun. So good lukk and happi dreems. Dont skueel coz then I'l skueeltoo.

Pug Noz Thomson

------VI------

"You gentlemen of the press," said Mr. Winford to Laury, "are most decidedly aggravating, I must say. You should realize that I am not exactly in the mood to give you interviews and information on this painful subject... No, I repeat, the individual who calls himself Damned Dan did not come to this second meeting, as he promised, an hour after the first. I waited for him to no avail and I just returned home. That is all I know... But I do wish that you gentlemen would not be so insistent in paying me visits that are becoming rather too frequent."

Laury stared at him hopelessly.

"And, young man," Mr. Winford added severely, "I would give a little more consideration to my personal appearance before calling at people's houses, if I were you."

Laury glanced indifferently into a big, full-size mirror in the white marble hall of the Winford residence, and the mirror showed to him a haggard, disheveled young man, with his hair hanging down on his wet forehead, his cap backwards on his head, his shirt torn open and his necktie on his shoulder.

The sight did not affect him at all; he had had too many shocks this day to retain any faculty of reaction. The last shock had been the worst of all; from his apartment he had rushed straight to the Winford residence, hoping to find Jinx there; he had found only Mr. Winford just returned from his second appointment with Pug-Nose Thomson and Pug-Nose had not

come to this meeting! Why? Jinx was in his power now. What had happened?

Laury bowed to Mr. Winford wearily.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Winford," he said in a dull voice. "I'm rather upset over a very serious matter... Thank you for the information... Goodnight!"

He turned and left the wide, empty hall dimly lighted by crystal chandeliers reflected in the dark mirrors and polished marble floor, Mr. Winford's lonely figure motionless among tall, white columns and the faint sound of Mrs. Winford's sobs, somewhere in a distant room.

He drove his rattling sports car on the graveled road of the Winford gardens, rolling downhill, with a fountain tinkling somewhere in the darkness like breaking glass and the lights of Dicksville glittering far down under his feet between the branches of tall, black cypresses.

With each turn of the wheels his face was becoming grimmer and grimmer. He was calm now, and implacable. There was only one thing to do — and he had decided to do it.

He was going straight to Police Headquarters to throw them on Pug-Nose Thomson's trail. He knew that once Pug-Nose was caught, it would be the end of him, too, for the bum certainly would not keep silent. For the first time he felt a cold shudder at the thought of jail. So that was the fate awaiting him! Such was to be the end of his glorious journalistic career that had just been starting so brilliantly! A kidnapper, a criminal, a convict... Oh, well, it had to be done!