How warm it looked with all that gold and red!
In the basement was the grill. It was a night when one might order something heavy and hot. A planked steak--with deviled oysters at the start and a salad at the end.
And now another motor-car was poking its nose against the curb. And Whiting climbed out, a bear in a big fur coat.
Whiting's car was a closed one. And it would stay there for an hour. Ostrander knew the habits of the man. From the office to the club, and from the club--home. Whiting was methodical to a minute. At seven sharp the doors would open and let him out.
The clock on the post-office tower showed six!
There was a policeman on the east corner, beating his arms against the cold. Ostrander did not beat his arms. He cowered frozenly in the shadow of a big building until the policeman passed on.
Then he darted across the street and into Whiting's car!
Whiting, coming out in forty minutes, found his car gone. Sands, the door man, said that he had noticed nothing. The policeman on the corner had not noticed.
"I usually stay longer," Whiting said, "but to-night I wanted to get home. I have a lot of things for the kids."
"Were the things in your car?" the policeman asked.
Ostrander, with his hand on the wheel, his feet on the brakes, slipped through the crowded streets unchallenged. It had been easy to unlock the car. He had learned many things in these later years.
It was several minutes before he was aware of faint fragrances--warm tropical fragrances of flowers and fruits and spices--Christmas fragrances which sent him back to the great kitchen where his grandmother's servants had baked and brewed.
He stopped the car and touched a button. The light showed booty. He had not expected this. He had wanted the car for an hour, to feel the thrill of it under his fingers, to taste again the luxury of its warmth and softness. He had meant to take it back unharmed--with nothing more than the restless ghost of his poor desires to haunt Whiting when again he entered it.
But now here were toys and things which Whiting, in a climax of generosity, had culled from bake-shop and grocer, from flower-shop, fruit-shop, and confectioner.
He snapped out the light and drove on. He had still a half-hour for his adventure.