“What became of the one who's copped?”
“Oh, him? He hops into one of th' stairways along here.”
The officers didn't see the spreading pool of blood near Tricker's foot. They hurried off to make a ransack of the stairways, while Tricker hobbled out to a cab he had signaled, and drove away.
Twenty-four hours later!
Not a block from where he'd fought his battle with Tricker, Eat-'Em-Up-Jack was walking in Third Avenue. He was as lone as Lot's wife; for he nourished misanthropic sentiments and discouraged company. It was a moonless night and very dark, the snow still coming down. What with the storm and the hour, the streets were as empty as a church.
As Eat-'Em-Up-Jack passed the building farthest from the corner lamp, a crouching figure stepped out of the doorway. Had it been two o'clock in the afternoon, instead of two o'clock in the morning, you would have seen that he of the crouching figure was smooth and dark-skinned as to face, and that his blue-black hair had been cut after a tonsorial fashion popular along the Bowery as the Guinea Lop. The crouching one carried in his hand what seemed to be a rolled-up newspaper. In that rolled-up paper lay hidden a two-foot piece of lead pipe.
The crouching blue-black one crept after Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, making no more noise than a cat. He uplifted the lead pipe, grasping it the while with both hands.
Eat-'Em-Up-Jack, as unaware of his peril as of what was passing in the streets of Timbuctoo, slouched heavily forward, deep in thought, Perhaps he was considering a misspent youth, and chances thrown away.
The lead pipe came down.
There was a dull crash, and Eat-'Em-Up-Jack—without word or cry—fell forward on his face. Blood ran from mouth and ears, and melted redly into the snow.