The Wire Devils. Frank L. Packard

Hawk straightened, his arm streaked outward from his side, his pistol butt crashed on the Butcher’s skull, and he was upon the other like a flash, his free hand at the Butcher’s throat.

      From the room opposite came startled cries; across the corridor came the rush of feet—then the doorhandle was tried, the door shaken violently.

      The Butcher was struggling but feebly, making only a pitiful effort to loosen the Hawk’s clutch upon his throat, hanging almost limply in the Hawk’s arms, half dazed by the blow upon his head. White to the lips with passion, the Hawk whipped his hand into the other’s pocket, whipped out the other’s revolver, and flung the man away from him. And then, as the Butcher reeled and lurched backward to the window, and, clawing frantically at the sill, attempted to work his way out, the Hawk ran silently back, picked up the pay bag, and, jumping to the window again, caught the Butcher roughly by the collar of the coat.

      The Butcher, white, haggard-faced with fear, moaned.

      “For God’s sake!” he pleaded piteously. “Let me go! Let me go! For God’s sake, let me go—they’ll get me!”

      There was a terrific crash upon the door, as of some heavy body hurled against it. The Hawk laughed mirthlessly.

      “If I let you go, you’d break your neck!”—the Hawk’s words were coming through clenched teeth. “Don’t worry, Butcher! They’ll not get you. I don’t want them to get you. I want to get you myself for this. Some day, Butcher, some day I’ll do the getting!” He pushed the Butcher’s feet over the sill. “Feel with your toes for the window casing beneath! Quick!” He leaned out, gripping at the Butcher’s collar, lowering the man—his lips were close against the Butcher’s ear. “Some day—for this—you yellow cur—you and me, Butcher—remember—some day!”

      A crash again upon the door! The Butcher’s feet were on the lower sill; but here the man lost his hold, and toppled to the ground. The Hawk glanced backward into the room. The door was yielding now. He looked out of the window again. The Butcher had regained his feet, and was swaying against the wall, holding to it, making his way slowly, weakly toward the corner.

      The Hawk threw one leg over the sill. With a rip and tear, the door smashed inward, sagging from its lower hinge. Came a hoarse yell. MacVightie was plunging through the doorway.

      Instantly the Hawk, hugging the pay bag, drew back his leg, and dove into the clerk’s room through the door which he had left ajar. There would have been no use in letting the Butcher go at all if he led the chase through the window—the man was barely crawling away. Across the room, light enough now from the open doorway behind him to point the way, raced the Hawk. He reached the corridor door, as MacVightie lunged through the connecting door in pursuit.

      MacVightie’s voice rose in a bellow of warning:

      “Look out there, Lanson! The next door—quick!”

      But the Hawk was the quicker. He tore the door open, and dashed through, just eluding the superintendent and another man—the dispatcher probably, attracted by the row—as they sprang forward from the paymaster’s door.

      Running like a deer, the Hawk made for the stairway. It was lighter now in the hall. The dispatcher’s door along at the farther end was open. At the head of the stairs, a call boy, wide-eyed, gaped, openmouthed. The Hawk brushed the boy aside incontinently, and, taking the stairs three and four at a time, leaped downward, MacVightie’s bull-like roar echoing behind him, the top stairs creaking under the detective’s rush.

      The street door opened outward, and as the Hawk reached it, and, wrenching at the knob, pushed it open, there was a flash, the report of a revolver shot—and, with a venomous spat, the bullet buried itself in the door jamb, not an inch from his head, it seemed, for the wind of the bullet was on his cheek.

      Cries sounded now from the railroad yard; but the street in front of him, deserted, was still undisturbed. He was across it in a twinkling, and, passing the saloon that was now closed, darted into the lane.

      He flung a glance over his shoulder—and his lips set hard. MacVightie, big man though he was, was no mean antagonist in a race. The detective, quicker in initiative, quicker on his feet, had outdistanced both Lanson and the dispatcher, and was already halfway across the street.

      Again MacVightie fired.

      On the Hawk ran. If he could reach the next corner—providing there was no one about the street—there was a way, a risky way, but still a way, his best chance of escape. The cheap combination lodging house and saloon, that was just around the corner, was where he had a room. Yes, it was his one chance! He must get to cover somewhere without an instant’s delay. With MacVightie firing now, emptying his revolver up the lane, with the yells and shouts growing constantly in volume from farther back toward the station, it was only a question of minutes before the whole neighbourhood would be aroused.

      Again he glanced behind him. It was very dark in the lane. He was grimly conscious that it was the blackness, and not MacVightie’s poor marksmanship, that had saved him so far. That flash of the other’s revolver was perhaps fifty yards away. He had gained a little, then! If there was any one around the corner, the plan of reaching his room would not serve him, and he would still have to run for it. Well, he would see in an instant—it was only two yards more—a yard—now!

      Without slackening his pace, at top speed he swung from the lane—and, with a gasp of relief at sight of an empty street, slipped into a doorway just beyond the now dark entrance to a saloon that occupied most of the ground floor of a dirty and squalid three-story building.

      The door gave on a narrow flight of stairs, and up these the Hawk sprang swiftly and with scarcely a sound. And now, as he ran, he pulled his mask from his face and thrust it into the pay bag; a pocket-book from his inside coat pocket followed the mask, and, with the pocketbook, the flashlight, and the two pistols, his own and the Butcher’s. He opened a door at the head of the landing, and stepped into a room, leaving the door partly open.

      He was not safe yet—far from it! He did not under-estimate MacVightie. It would be obvious to MacVightie that he was not far enough ahead to have disappeared in any but one way—into some building within a very few yards of the lane! And the presumption, at least, would be that this was the one.

      The Hawk worked now with almost incredible speed. He switched on the light, ran to the window that opened on the rear of the building, felt with one hand along the sill outside, lifted the pay bag out of the window, let go of it, and turned instantly back into the room. He hung up his hat on a wall peg, and tearing off his jacket, flung it haphazardly upon the bed. There was a small table against the wall near the foot of the bed. The Hawk opened a drawer, snatched up a pack of cards, and sat down at the table.

      The street door opened and closed. A quick, heavy tread sounded on the stairs.

      In his shirt sleeves, his back to the door, the Hawk was coolly playing solitaire.

      “I guess I’d better be smoking,” murmured the Hawk. “Maybe I’m breathing a little hard.”

      He picked up a pipe from the table, lighted a match—and, half the deck of cards in one hand, the lighted match in the other, swung around in his chair with a startled jerk.

      The door slammed back against the wall. MacVightie had unceremoniously kicked it wide open. MacVightie was standing on the threshold.

      The Hawk, in a sort of surprised gasp, sucked the flame of the match down into the bowl of his pipe, and stared at MacVightie through a curtain of tobacco smoke. The detective’s eyes travelled sharply from the Hawk around the room, came back to the Hawk, narrowed, and, stepping into the room, he shut the door with equal lack of ceremony behind him.

      “Say, you got a gall!” ejaculated the Hawk.

      “You bet your life I have!” flung out MacVightie. “Now then, my bucko, what are you doing, here?”

      “Say,” said the Hawk, as though obsessed with but a single idea, “say, you got a gall! You got a gall, busting into a fellow’s