The Greatest Crime Novels of Frank L. Packard (14 Titles in One Edition). Frank L. Packard

to the floor, there was a scuffling sound—and then silence again.

      Jimmie Dale’s automatic was thrust a little forward in his hand, as he crouched against the wall. He could have shot the man, as the other stood in the doorway. The Wolf had offered a target that it would have been hard to miss—and it would, one day, have saved the law the same task! He was a fool, perhaps, that he had not taken what was, perhaps again, the one chance he had for his life, for he was at a decided disadvantage now, since he knew intuitively that the Wolf, scuttling back, had now craftily protected himself behind the jamb of the door, and yet at the same time still commanded the interior of the room. But he could not have fired in cold blood like that—even upon the Wolf, devil though the man was, murderer a dozen times over though he the man to be! He, Jimmie Dale, had never shot to kill not yet—but in a fight, cornered, if there was no other way…!

      He moved a little, a bare few inches, then a few more—without a sound. In the light of the match, the Wolf must have seen the dismantled panelling and the open safe, and a masked figure crouched against the wall—and the Wolf would have marked the position of that crouched figure against the wall!

      Silence—a minute of it—still another!

      Again Jimmie Dale moved inch by inch—toward the window. And yet to attempt the window was to invite a shot and expose himself, for, dark as it was, his body would show plainly enough against the background of that lesser gloom of window square.

      Jimmie Dale’s eyes strained through the blackness across the room. He could just make out the configuration of the doorway. The Wolf was just on the other side of it, just inside the kitchen, he was sure of that. Almost a smile was flickering over Jimmie Dale’s tight-pressed lips. There was a way—there was a way now, if the Wolf did not get him with a chance shot. He moved again, and reached the window, crouched low beneath the sill—and passed by the window.

      And then the Wolf spoke from the doorway in a hoarse whisper, and in the whisper there was a low, taunting laugh.

      “I been waitin’ for you to try the window, but you’re too foxy—eh? All right, my bucko—then I’ll get you another way—with just one shot, see? And then—good-night! And say, whoever t’hell you are, thanks for crackin’ the box for me!”

      The man’s voice came from the right of the doorway—and the door opened inward—and he, Jimmie Dale, remembered that he had opened it wide. It was slow, very slow, this creeping inch by inch through the darkness. It seemed as though his breath were as stertorous as that breathing from above, and that the Wolf must hear.

      And then the Wolf laughed low again.

      There was a curious crackling noise, as of paper being torn—and then, quick, in the doorway, came a yellow flame, and the Wolf’s hand showed from around the edge of the jamb, and, making momentary daylight of the room, a flaming piece of paper, tossed in, fell upon the floor.

      There was a flash, the roar of the report—and another—as the Wolf fired! There was the sullen spat of a bullet upon the panelling an inch from Jimmie Dale’s head—and a sharp and sudden pain, as though a hot iron had seared his leg.

      And now Jimmie Dale’s automatic, too, cut flashes with its vicious flame-tongues through the black. Coolly, steadily, he was firing at the doorway—to hold the Wolf there—to keep the Wolf now in the position of the Wolf’s own choosing. The paper was but a dull cinder in the centre of the room; twisted too tightly, it had gone out almost immediately.

      There came screams, loud, terrified, in a woman’s voice from the floor above—and the hoarser tones of a man shouting. A window was flung open. Snarling blasphemous, furious oaths, the Wolf was firing at the flashes of Jimmie Dale’s revolver—but each time as Jimmie Dale fired, the sound drowned in the roar of the report, he moved a good yard forward.

      Came the trampling of feet from overhead now; and now, as the woman still screamed, answering shouts and yells came from the dance hall. Jimmie Dale had the foot of the bed now near the corner. He again, and instantly flung himself flat upon the floor—and, in the answering flash of the Wolf’s shot, placed the exact location of the door itself. There was tumult enough now to deaden the slight sound he made. He crept swiftly past the bed to the wall, against which the door, wide open, was swung back, felt out with his hand, the edge of the door, and, leaping suddenly to his feet, hurled the door shut upon the Wolf. There was a scream of pain—the door as it slammed perhaps had caught the Wolf’s arm or wrist—but before it was opened again Jimmie Dale was across the room, and, flinging himself through the window, dropped to the ground.

      The door crashing back against the wall again, the Wolf’s baffled yell of rage, and an abortive shot, told him that his ruse had been solved. He was running now, as rapidly as he could in the darkness and in the narrow space between the Spider’s house and the wall of the brick building. Yells in increasing volume sounded from the direction of “The Yellow Lantern”; and now he could hear the pound of feet racing across the courtyard toward the antique shop. The woman, from the open window above, was still screaming with terror.

      If he could gain the door in the fence—and the lane! But there was still the Wolf to reckon with! The Wolf had only to run through the kitchen and out by the back entrance—the shorter distance of the two. But the Wolf had already lost a few seconds so that now the race was a gamble. Could he, Jimmie Dale, get there first! He could not run in the other direction—that would take him into the courtyard, and the courtyard now, as evidenced by the yells and shouting, was filled with an excited crowd emptying from the dance hall.

      He reached the rear end of the house, and darted across the wider space here, racing for the opening in the fence—and suddenly changed his tactics, and began to zigzag a little. A revolver flash cut the night. Came the Wolf’s howl from the back stoop, and, over his shoulder, Jimmie Dale saw the other, dark-shadowed, leap forward in pursuit—and heard the Wolf fire again.

      He flung himself against the fence door, and it gave with a crash. Pandemonium reigned behind him. In a blur he saw the courtyard, that was dimly lighted now by the open doors and open windows of the dance hall, swaying with shapes, and, like ghostly figures, a mob tearing toward him down the alleyway.

      The Wolf’s voice, punctuated with a torrent of blasphemy and vile invective, shrilled out over the tumult:

      “Come on! Here he is! Out in the lane!”

      “Who is it?” shrilled another voice.

      “I don’t know!” yelled the Wolf. “Catch him, and we’ll damn soon find out!”

      Jimmie Dale was running like a hare now down the lane. The Wolf leading, still firing, the crowd poured out into the lane in pursuit. Jimmie Dale zigzagged no longer, there was greater risk in that than in risking the shots—it was black enough in the lane to risk the shots; but his lead, barely twenty-five yards, was too short to risk their gaining upon him through his running from side to side.

      His brain, cool in peril, worked swiftly. The Sanctuary! That was the one chance for his life! He had been no more than a masked figure huddled against the wall of the room in there. The Wolf had not recognised him. He would be safe if he could reach the Sanctuary! There were two blocks to go along the street ahead, then the next lane, and from that into the intersecting lane, the loose board in the fence that swung at a touch, the French window—and the Sanctuary. But to accomplish this he must gain upon his pursuers, not merely hold his own, but increase the distance between them by at least another fifteen or twenty yards; he must, in other words, be out of range of vision as he disappeared through the fence. Well, he should be able to do that! It was the trained athlete against an ill-conditioned, dissolute mob!

      He swerved from the lane into the street. There was grim and hellish humour in the thought that a wolf should be leading the snarling, howling pack, blood mad now, at his heels! The Wolf had ceased firing—obviously because the Wolf’s revolver was empty. The others, a lesser breed, and previously intent on a peaceful orgy at the dance hall, were evidently not armed.

      Jimmie Dale gained five yards, another five, and another ten. He had no fear