“Come on, then,” said Billy Kane.
He crawled through the opening with the Wop at his heels, and rose to his feet, then gripping at the Wop’s arm, he stole across the cellar, gained the steps and, an instant later, stepped out into a dark and narrow alleyway. He did not pause here; he hurried the Wop down the alleyway, and halted only when within a few yards of the first intersecting street: just far enough back in the alleyway to keep well beyond the radius of light from the adjoining thoroughfare.
Neither man spoke for a moment. After the silence of that death trap behind them, the roar of an elevated train from Chatham Square near by seemed to Billy Kane a din infernal, and greater only by a little than the rattle of wheels, the clatter of horses’ hoofs, and the multitudinous noises of ordinary traffic. He could just make out the Wop’s features. One side of the man’s face was streaked with clotted blood stains; but apart from that the Wop now showed little outward evidence of the attack that had been made upon him. He stood there now, quite steady on his feet, his eyes studying Billy Kane’s mask in a puzzled way.
“Say,” said the Wop, a sudden huskiness in his voice. “I owe you something. What’s your name?”
Billy Kane shook his head.
“Never mind about that,” he said quietly. “There’s something else that’s of vastly greater importance so far as you are concerned. Do you know why they got after you to-night, or who it was that got you in that trap?”
“No,” said the Wop.
“I’ll tell you, then,” said Billy Kane. “It was because you threatened to get even with Ivan Barloff.”
“Barloff!” The Wop’s fists clenched, and he stepped closer to Billy Kane. “So it was Barloff, was it? He must have had the fear of God in him, then, to make him spend any money—even to hire thugs! Barloff, eh? Well, I’m going to see Barloff pretty soon!”
“No, you’re not!” said Billy Kane crisply. “That’s exactly why I am telling you this. It isn’t Barloff. It’s a crowd that knew of your threat, and they’re getting after Barloff, and framing you up for the job. They’re planting a little evidence against you in Barloff’s place in exchange for Barloff’s cash, and with you finished off via the murder route, they expect the police to throw up their hands after a while and admit you’ve made a clean get-away—with the swag.”