Two or three laughing men had started forward, among them a fiddler, who had joined the line, and who now rushed out in flaunting bravery, brandishing his violin as though to brain the intruder. Again the command:
"Back there—get back!"
Then the crowd recoiled. Flashes had come from the masked man's guns, the popping of electric light globes above and the showering of glass testifying to the fact that they had contained something more than mere wadding. Somewhat dazed, the fiddler continued his rush, suddenly to crumple and fall, while men milled and women screamed. A door slammed, the lock clicked, and the crowd rushed for the windows. The hold-up had been real after all,—instead of a planned, joking affair. On the floor the fiddler lay gasping—and bleeding. And the bandit was gone.
All in a moment the dance hall seemed to have gone mad. Men were rushing about and shouting; panic-stricken women clawed at one another and fought their way toward a freedom they could not gain. Windows crashed as forms hurtled against them; screams sounded. Hurriedly, as the crowd massed thicker, Fairchild raised the small form of Anita in his arms and carried her to a chair, far at one side.
"It's all right now," he said, calming her. "Everything 's over—look, they 're helping the fiddler to his feet. Maybe he 's not badly hurt. Everything 's all right—"
And then he straightened. A man had unlocked the door from the outside and had rushed into the dance hall, excited, shouting. It was Maurice Rodaine.
"I know who it was," he almost screamed. "I got a good look at him—jumped out of the window and almost headed him off. He took off his mask outside—and I saw him."
"You saw him—?" A hundred voices shouted the question at once.
"Yes." Then Maurice Rodaine nodded straight toward Robert Fairchild. "The light was good, and I got a straight look at him. He was that fellow's partner—a Cornishman they call Harry!"