Quick though Barney was to reach the bomb and extinguish the fuse,
Maenck had disappeared before he returned to search for him; and,
though he roused the gardener and chauffeur and took turns with them
in standing guard the balance of the night, the would-be assassin
did not return.
There was no question in Barney Custer's mind as to whom the bomb
was intended for. That Maenck had hurled it toward the house after
Barney had seized him was merely the result of accident and the
man's desire to get the death-dealing missile as far from himself as
possible before it exploded. That it would have wrecked the house in
the hope of reaching him, had he not fortunately interfered, was too
evident to the American to be questioned.
And so he decided before the night was spent to put himself as far
from his family as possible, lest some future attempt upon his life
might endanger theirs. Then, too, righteous anger and a desire for
revenge prompted his decision. He would run Maenck to earth and have
an accounting with him. It was evident that his life would not be
worth a farthing so long as the fellow was at liberty.
Before dawn he swore the gardener and chauffeur to silence, and at
breakfast announced his intention of leaving that day for New York
to seek a commission as correspondent with an old classmate, who
owned the New York Evening National. At the hotel Barney inquired of
the proprietor relative to a bearded stranger, but the man had had
no one of that description registered.
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