There was another long wait, through which Frances lay there, neither struggling nor moving, saving her strength for one last effort.
“Yes, yes; Duggan; I guess that’s it!” MacNutt was saying over the wire to the switchboard operator at the hotel. “Yes, Duggan, with a lame arm!”
Then he let the receiver swing at the end of its cord and with his freed hand drew his revolver from his pocket.
The gasping woman felt the crushing pressure released for a moment, and fought to free her right hand. It came away from his hold with a jerk, and as her finger slipped into the little metal piston-ring she flung the freed arm up about his shoulder and clung to him. For a sudden last thought had come to her, a rotten thread of hope, on which swayed and hung her last chance of life.
It was through the coat and clothing of the struggling MacNutt that the little needle was forced, through the skin, and deep into the flesh of the great, beefy shoulder. She held it there until the barrel was empty, then it fell on the floor.
“You’d try to stab me, would you!” he cried, madly, uncomprehendingly, as he struggled in vain to throttle the writhing body, and then raised his revolver, to beat her on the head. The signal-bell rang sharply, and he caught up the receiver instead.
“Now!” he gloated insanely, deep in his wheezing throat. “Now! Is that Durkin speaking? Is that Durkin? Oh, it is! Well, this is MacNutt—I say your old friend MacNutt!” and he laughed horribly, dementedly.
“You’ve done a good deal of business over the wires, Durkin, in your day, haven’t you? Well, you listen now, and you’ll hear something doin’! I say listen now, and you’ll hear something doin’!”
“Jim!” screamed the woman, pinned down on the edge of the table. “Jim!” she screamed insanely. “Oh, Jim, save me!”
She could hear the sharp phonographic burr of her husband’s voice through the receiver.