"A beneficent and just holdup," added Darrow; "the first of its kind in
this city."
McCarthy glared at him malevolently.
"It don't go unless you deliver the goods," he threatened.
"Understood," agreed Darrow.
"What's his name?" demanded McCarthy, withdrawing the pencil stub, and
preparing to write.
"His name," answered Darrow, "is John Warford, Junior."
McCarthy started to his feet with a bellow of rage, his face turning
purple.
"Of all the infernal--!" he roared, and stopped, as though stricken dumb.
For two or three words further his mouth and throat went through the
motions of speech. Then an expression of mingled fear and astonishment
overspread his countenance. He sank back into his chair. Percy Darrow
nodded twice and smiled.
CHAPTER VII
A WORLD OF GHOSTS
A deathly stillness had all at once fallen like a blanket, blotting out
McCarthy's violent speech. The rattling typewriter in the next room was
abruptly stilled. The roar of the city died as a living creature is cut by
the sword--all at once, without the transitionary running down of most
silences. Absolute dense stillness, like that of a sea calm at night, took
the place of the customary city noises. In his astonishment McCarthy
thrust a heavy inkstand off the edge of his desk. It hit the floor,
spilled, rolled away; but noiselessly, as would the inkstand in a moving
picture.
To have one's world thus suddenly stricken dumb, to be transported orally
from the roar of a city to the peace of a woodland or a becalmed sea is
certainly astonishing enough.
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