Lanyard was well persuaded he need only wait there long enough to receive a
deputation from Seventy-ninth Street. And with any assurance that Ekstrom
would come alone, he might have been content to wait. Not only had he
through too intimate acquaintance with his methods every assurance that
Ekstrom would never brave alone what he could induce another to risk with
him, but Lanyard was never one willing to play the passive part.
A banal axiom of all warfare applied: The advantage is with him who fights
upon the offensive.
Since midnight the offensive had shifted from Lanyard's grasp to the
enemy's. He was determined to recapture it; and that was something never to
be accomplished by sitting still and waiting for events to unfold, but only
by carrying the war into the enemy's camp.
He delayed, then, only long enough to change his clothing and to conceal
about him certain properties which it seemed unwise to expose to chance
discovery on the part of Ekstrom or in the ever-possible event of police
intervention.
Within five minutes from the time of his return he was closing behind him
the private door.
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