Winthrop stared at the youth insolently.

“I don’t understand you,” he said.

“Oh, of course not!” jeered “Izzy” Schwab.  He moved excitedly from foot to foot.  “Then who was the other man,” he demanded, “the man who ran away?”

Winthrop felt the blood rise to his face.  That Miss Forbes should hear this rat of a man, sneering at the one she was to marry, made him hate Peabody.  But he answered easily: 

“No one ran away.  I told my chauffeur to go and call up an ambulance.  That was the man you saw.”

As when “leading on” a witness to commit himself, Mr. Schwab smiled sympathetically.

“And he hasn’t got back yet,” he purred, “has he?”

“No, and I’m not going to wait for him,” returned Winthrop.  He reached for the clutch, but Mr. Schwab jumped directly in front of the car.

“Was he looking for a telephone when he ran up the elevated steps?” he cried.

He shook his fists vehemently.

“Oh, no, Mr. Winthrop, it won’t do—­you make a good witness.  I wouldn’t ask for no better, but, you don’t fool `Izzy’ Schwab.”

“You’re mistaken, I tell you,” cried Winthrop desperately.  “He may look like—­like this man you speak of, but no Peabody was in this car.”

“Izzy” Schwab wrung his hands hysterically.

“No, he wasn’t!” he cried, “because he run away!  And left an old man in the street—­dead, for all he knowed—­nor cared neither.  Yah!” shrieked the Tammany heeler.  “Him a Reformer, yah!”

“Stand away from my car,” shouted Winthrop, “or you’ll get hurt.”

“Yah, you’d like to, wouldn’t you?” returned Mr. Schwab, leaping, nimbly to one side.  “What do you think the Journal’ll give me for that story, hey? `Ernest Peabody, the Reformer, Kills an Old Man, and runs away.’  And hiding his face, too!  I seen him.  What do you think that story’s worth to Tammany, hey?  It’s worth twenty thousand votes!” The young man danced in front of the car triumphantly, mockingly, in a frenzy of malice.  “Read the extras, that’s all,” he taunted.  “Read ’em in an hour from now!”

Winthrop glared at the shrieking figure with fierce, impotent rage; then, with a look of disgust, he flung the robe off his knees and rose.  Mr. Schwab, fearing bodily injury, backed precipitately behind the policeman.

“Come here,” commanded Winthrop softly.  Mr. Schwab warily approached.  “That story,” said Winthrop, dropping his voice to a low whisper, “is worth a damn sight more to you than twenty thousand votes.  You take a spin with me up Riverside Drive where we can talk.  Maybe you and I can `make a little business.’”

At the words, the face of Mr. Schwab first darkened angrily, and then, lit with such exultation that it appeared as though Winthrop’s efforts had only placed Peabody deeper in Mr. Schwab’s power.  But the rat-like eyes wavered, there was doubt in them, and greed, and, when they turned to observe if any one could have heard the offer, Winthrop felt the trick was his.  It was apparent that Mr. Schwab was willing to arbitrate.