“I don’t know,” said English Dick again. “I tell you, I don’t know! They’re big—my God, they’ll get me for this, if the law doesn’t! I don’t know where he lives—he always came to me. The only one I know is Reddy Mull, and—”
His voice was drowned out in a louder and more prolonged burst of applause from the pool room, which mingled shouts, cries and the thunderous banging of cue butts on the floor.
“A good shot!” said Jimmie Dale, with a grim smile.
“Yes,” said English Dick, “a good shot”—but into his voice had crept a new note, a note like one of malicious triumph.
Jimmie Dale’s lips set suddenly hard and tight. Yes, he heard now—perhaps too late—what the other saw. The uproar that had drowned out all other sounds had subsided—the door behind him had been unlocked and was now opening slowly.
And then Jimmie Dale, quick as thought is quick, his fingers closed on the satchel, hurled himself around the table and to the floor. There was the roar of a report, a flash of flame, as Reddy Mull, hand thrust in through the partially open doorway, fired—a wild scream, as the shot, meant for him, Jimmie Dale, found another mark directly behind where he had been standing—and English Dick, reeling to his feet, pitched forward over the table, carrying the table with him to the floor. It had taken the time that a watch takes to tick. Came the roar of a report again, as Jimmie Dale fired in turn—at the electric-light bulb a few feet away from him on the wall. There was the tinkle of shattering glass—and darkness. Came shouts, cries, a yell from the door from Reddy Mull, a fusillade of shots from Reddy Mull’s revolver, the rush of many feet from the pool room—and Jimmie Dale, in the blackness, dropped silently from the window to the ground.
He gained the street; and, five minutes later, blocks away, he entered the private stall of a Bowery saloon. Here, Jimmie Dale added another paper to the contents of the satchel. The characters printed, and badly formed, the paper looked like this:
WITH THE COMPLIMENTS OF THE
/\
/ \
/ \
/ \
\ /
\ /
\ /
\/
“And I guess,” said Jimmie Dale grimly to himself, “that if I slip this to the police, the police will get—Reddy Mull.”