Chapter XVII: Flight

BUT he did not go home. He walked down town.

He had keys to the Overbeck building. He would go there and think.

Why had he told Madge? There wasn’t any sense to it. Yes, why?...

But that wasn’t the question, either. The question was what to do now--now that he had told Madge....

He walked up and down in the outer office, trying to think. It was no use. His mind wouldn’t work.

He lay down on one of the leather-upholstered benches, exhausted, and fell asleep.

When he woke up it was dark. He looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. Had he slept all day?

He had certainly made a frightful mess of things.... He reached for a cigarette.

When he had smoked all his cigarettes, he went out for more. He had not been able to make any decisions at all.

On an impulse, he stepped into the telephone booth at the cigar store, and called up Madge’s house. He was going to ask how she was. But when he heard her voice answering him, he lost his nerve. What could he say to her?

“Sorry,” he muttered, and hung up the receiver.

After a moment’s thought, he reached for his pocketbook. It wasn’t there, and he remembered that he had left it in the bureau in his room.

He came out of the booth, and went up to the counter, taking out his check-book. “Jack,” he said, “how’s your cash to-night? Can you let me have twenty-five dollars?”

“Fifty, if you like, Mr. Overbeck,” said Jack.

“All right--I could use fifty. Or a hundred. Could you let me have a hundred?”

“I’ll see, Mr. Overbeck.”

He looked in the cash-register, and took some bills from his pocket. “I’m afraid I haven’t got a hundred here. I could let you have seventy. Or, if you don’t mind taking some silver, I could give you--let’s see--eighty. Eighty-five. Would that do?”

“That will be fine.”

Norman wrote out a check, pushed it across the counter, and stuffed the money in his pocket. “Do you happen to know what time the St. Louis train leaves?”

Jack thought there was just about time to make it.