noon
Achilles passed swiftly out of the hospital -- through the sun-glinting wards , out to the free air -- his heart choking him . At the corner , he caught a car bound for the South side and boarded it . And at the same moment Philip Harris , in his office in the works , was summoning the Chief of Police to instruct him to open negotiations with the kidnappers . But Achilles reached the office first and before noon every member of the force knew that a clue had been found -- a clue light as a child 's breath between sleep and waking , but none the less a clue -- and to-morrow more would be known . So Philip Harris stayed his hand -- because of the muttered , half-incoherent word of a Greek boy , drowsing in a great sunny ward , the millionaire waited -- and little children were safer that night . But the surgeon , the next morning , shook his head peremptorily . His patient had been tampered with , and was worse -- it was a critical case -- all the skill and science of modern surgery involved in it ... the brain had barely escaped -- by a breath , it might be -- no one could tell ... but the boy must be kept quiet .