Flash heard two more shots, a grunt of pain, running feet on the stairway, and finally the slamming of an outside door.
In a moment the light came on again. A policeman staggered into the room. His right wrist was hanging limp, but with his other hand he flipped a pair of steel bracelets from his pocket and snapped them on the wrists of the man Flash guarded.
“The others got away?” the photographer gasped.
“Yeah, but I winged one of them. Who are you, kid?”
“Evans, a photographer for the Ledger.”
“I came near letting you have it when you reached for that gun,” said the policeman. “Now who is this hombre?”
Tersely Flash told all that had happened, identifying the prisoner as Judd Slater, the same man who was thought to have set the Sam Davis fire.
“We may be able to pick up those other two a little later,” the policeman commented. “We don’t want tough shot here to get lonesome. He might miss his little playmates.”
He jerked the prisoner’s arm roughly and half spun him around.
“You won’t be so hard after we’ve worked on you awhile at headquarters. We’ve softened up tougher cookies than you.”