# The Hand of Peril/Part 3/Chapter 5

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At precisely nine o'clock a tall and benignant looking figure, made more stately by the loose folds of a black raincoat, stepped from a door in Fifty-first Street, not a hundred yards from Fifth Avenue, and peered carefully eastward and then as carefully westward. On his head he wore a broad-brimmed black hat and in his right hand he carried a black club bag.
He stepped quickly down to the street, where a taxi-cab stood waiting. He crossed to the curb, stooping against the heavy slant of rain that swept down from the east. The taxi-driver, huddled back out of the drip from his cab-hood, nodded a head half-buried in a water-proof helmet, blithely said "Yep" to a second question from the new-comer, and speeded up his engine.
The man with the club bag again looked up and down the street, directed the driver to hurry him to Dirlam's Casino by way of Fifty-ninth Street and Broadway, and then stepped into the cab and slammed the door after him.
It was an inclement night for an excursion in even a closed carriage. The cross-street stood as empty as a drained flume-way, the pooled asphalt throwing up scattered reflections of the lonely city lamps. The floor of Fifth Avenue, washed as clean as a ballroom and shimmering like a mirror, undulated mistily ​northward. It was a canyon of silence along which the only sound was the periodic clatter of non-skid chains and the throb of an occasional motor-engine. New York stood like a city suddenly depopulated by some vast cataclysm.
The benignant looking Southerner in the black raincoat pounded sharply on the cab-front when his driver, apparently forgetful of instructions, jolted over the Fifty-ninth Street car-tracks and swerved to the right through the Park entrance beside the Sherman Statue.
"I said by way of Broadway," he peremptorily called out.
But the speeding car kept on its way, the driver apparently oblivious of the fact that he was being addressed.
His angry fare flung open the cab door, thrust one foot out on the running board, and for a second time shouted for his driver to swing about.
But still the car continued on its way.
The benignant looking Southerner thereupon reached about with one long arm and pounded on the body of that insensate driver. There was nothing for that driver to do but slow down, stare stupidly about and demand what was wrong. But the car still crept slowly northward.
"Where are you goin', anyway?" demanded the driver, making note of the fact that they had already reached the lower end of the Mall.
"You know where I am going and you know the way I told you to go," proclaimed the man in the black rain-coat.
"What t'ell's the use of circlin' the Island to get to ​Dirlam's?" he expostulated. "I'm takin' you the shortest way up, ain't I?"
"Get out of this Park," shouted back his fare with an unreasonable show of anger. But the car was still crawling forward.
"Then I'll cut out through the Seventy-second Street gate," announced the man on the driving-seat as he speeded up again. He had the inward satisfaction of hearing the taxi-door slam shut. He took a turn at high speed to the west, tried to correct what appeared a mistake, turned again, skidded, and came up with a bump against the stone base of a large drinking-fountain.
The cab-door opened again as the driver emerged from under his water-proof apron. He found himself assailed by an oath of anger which seemed quite out of keeping with that benignant looking figure in black.
"What is it this time?"
"Engine's gone dead," was the gloomy response. He walked to the front of the car and began to crank.
Then he stood up, with a gesture of helplessness, staring about as though looking for some quarter from which help might miraculously come. But they seemed alone in a world of driving rain.
Then the driver stepped about to the side of the car, placing one hand against the partly opened door, for he saw that his fare had taken up the black bag and was about to step out.
"You know anything about engines?" he demanded, blocking the other's way. He made a pretence of doing this unconsciously. But the other man had grown suddenly suspicious.
​"Look here," said the man in the car, twisting angrily about so that he faced the driver through the cab-door, "if you try any—"
That was as far as the tall Southerner got. For out of the dripping shrubbery a third figure had emerged, had stepped up to the running board, and had opened the opposite door of the cab. And the next moment a crooked arm was thrown tightly about Hardman's neck and the cab was thumping and rocking with the tumult of the sudden struggle.
The driver did not even wait to determine the outcome of that encounter. He ran to the front of his car, cranked his engine, and climbed into his seat. He could still feel the cab rock and jolt with the fury of the struggle going on inside. From that narrow little arena he could hear short gasps and grunts which warned him that the fight was not as one-sided as it had promised to be. And by the light of a nearby Park lamp Wilsnach could see slowly approaching them the great waterproofed figure of a policeman. He knew that this officer's curiosity had been aroused. So he dropped his revolver back in his pocket and speeded up his engine, knowing the racing machinery would serve as a muffler to the more dangerous sounds from within the cab.
Then Wilsnach's heart came up in his throat, for above the other noises rang out the quick report of a pistol-shot. At the same time a bullet tore its way out through the roof of the cab-hood. Then came a moment of more frenzied agitation and threshing about, and then comparative silence.
Wilsnach, pedalling his accelerator, still let his ​motor flutter, uncertain as to how to act. He dare not swing about to investigate, for the approaching officer was already within forty feet of him, and he felt the possible need of that officer if things had already gone against them.
Then, the next moment his ear caught the rattle of the dropped door-glass. At the same time that the huge-bodied officer in the dripping raincoat drew up on the other side of the fountain Kestner's head appeared through the open window. Between his lips he held a freshly lighted cigar—which served to explain the small cloud of smoke drifting thinly out from under the cab-hood.
"Driver, what the devil's the matter with that engine of yours?" promptly demanded the man with the cigar.
"She's all right now—she was only back firin' that time," cheerily announced Wilsnach as he let in his clutch and got under way.
The waterproofed officer stood watching them. He stood there immobile, without speaking, the car-lamps refracting from his wet oil-skins in a hundred scattering high-lights. He stood there, ominous, colossal, heavily impassive, as the taxicab made its turn and swung so close to him that he could have reached out and touched its hood.
Wilsnach held his breath, wondering if he was to be stopped or not, knowing better than to turn and look back. Then he breathed again, for they had already taken the turn to the west and no word had been spoken.
It was Kestner's voice that came to him, calm, and ​reassuring, through the open cab-door as they swung down into the West Drive.
"I had to knock him out with the butt of his gun. Slow down a little until I go through his pockets."
Wilsnach crawled forward until Kestner suddenly commanded him to stop.
"There's an empty taxi. I'll catch that, and cut across to the Avenue." He was out on the running-board by this time, with the black bag in his hand, hailing the passing taxicab. Then he turned back to Wilsnach. "Your man's still down and out in there. Pick up that federal tailer at the Circle and get to the Forty-seventh Street station as fast as you can. Then make for the Lambert house. We're behind time, and this is just the beginning of our night's work!"