It all came about so suddenly and unexpectedly that Lefty never knew just what was the real cause. He saw one or two men turn and stare angrily at the fellow shoving his way past them, muttering something under their breath as they did so. Then, just as the pair were opposite him and close to the door, Locke heard a sharp cry of pain in a woman’s voice, followed instantly by a bellow of fury from a man. Swiftly there came the thud of bare fists against flesh and bone. A dozen men sprang up and began shoving toward the door. A woman screamed shrilly.
CHAPTER IV
ONE AGAINST SCORES
Instinctively Lefty joined the rush toward the center of disturbance. He caught a glimpse of two men struggling in close embrace, each raining blows upon the other’s face and body. He saw that one of them was Bert Elgin. The other was a big, burly fellow, dressed in a workman’s Sunday best, his face flushed, his eyes aflame with anger.
A score of other men were trying to get close enough to put in a blow or two. The place resounded with shouts of: “Kill him!” “Lynch him!” “Beat him up!” Then the whole struggling mob burst through the narrow doorway into the garish, glittering lobby.
Lefty was borne irresistibly toward the door by the crowd behind him, which seemed eager to take part in the fracas. By the time he reached it the entire audience was on its feet, making for the single exit. Hands pinioned helplessly at his sides, Locke was forced into the maelstrom of bodies. There was a squeeze, a breathless grunt, and he plunged out into the dazzling brightness.
The disturbance had ceased to be a fight and turned into a riot. The mob was made up of men in the raw, lacking in self-restraint, whose passions were roused to a white heat with very little cause. A woman’s cry of pain, the roar of fury from her escort, and the trouble was started.
As they surged against the frail, ornate booth from which tickets were dispensed, they were like a lot of madmen. Not half a dozen out of the crowd knew what the disturbance was about. Blows were rained on the heads and shoulders and backs of friends in their eagerness to get at the man in the very heart of that seething throng, and already two vigorous personal encounters had been started in different corners of the lobby on that account.
As he was flung forward against the side of the ticket booth, Lefty felt sudden anger surge up within him. He forgot that Bert Elgin was his enemy, and remembered only that he was battling against odds. And when, a moment later, by some odd trick of chance, he saw the fellow’s face, bruised, battered, blood trickling from a cut on his cheek, and caught a fleeting glance of desperate appeal from Elgin’s terror-stricken eyes, he threw caution to the winds and jumped into the fray.