XIX
FORCE MAJEURE
This visit to his rooms was the briefest of the several Lanyard made that
night, considerations of mortal urgency dictating its drastic abbreviation.
If the events of the last few hours had meant anything whatever they had
demonstrated two truths which shone like beacon lights: that Manhattan
Island was overpopulated as long as both he and Ekstrom remained on it;
that Ekstrom had been goaded to the verge of aberration by the discovery
that Lanyard had come safely through the _Assyrian_ debacle to take up anew
his self-appointed office of Nemesis to the Prussian spy system in general
and to the genius of its American bureau in particular.
Henceforth that one would know no more rest while Lanyard lived.
Thus that little street-level apartment forfeited whatever attractions it
originally had possessed in the adventurer's estimation. Not only was the
address known to Ekstrom's associates, and so open to him, but its peculiar
characteristics, its facilities for access from the street direct, rendered
it a highly practicable death-trap for a hunted man.
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