“I tell you, I don't like it!” he flung out suddenly. “Something's wrong! If he's outside the house, he can't see, anyway. I'm going to take a chance, and——”
There was a click, the light in the passageway went on—then a yell from the Bantam in the doorway—a lightning spring from the Hawk, as the other jerked a weapon upward—and the Bantam went down in a heap, as the Hawk's clubbed weapon caught him on the head. It was quick, like the winking of an eye. From back in the room, the Butcher sprang forward for the doorway—and fired—and missed—and the Hawk's left hand, as they came upon each other, darting out, closed with the strength of a steel vise on the Butcher's right wrist, and with a terrific wrench twisted the other's arm halfway around. It was lighter now in the room—light enough to see. The two forms swayed strangely—a little apart—the Butcher's body bent over, as though queerly deformed. Slowly, remorselessly, the Hawk turned the other's arm in its socket. Sweat sprang to the Butcher's forehead, his face writhed with pain—and, with a scream of agony, his revolver clattered to the floor.
“You're breaking it—for God's sake, let go!” he moaned.
The Hawk kicked the revolver to the other side of the room.
“Take the Bantam by the shoulders and drag him into that lighted room!” The Hawk's tones were flat, unpleasant. “I don't think I hit him hard enough to take the chance of leaving him there alone!”
The Butcher obeyed—with the muzzle of the Hawk's automatic pressed persuasively against the small of his back. He left the Bantam in the middle of the sitting room floor, and himself accepted a chair—at the Hawk's invitation.
“You again—eh, Butcher?” The Hawk's voice had become a drawl. With his automatic covering the Butcher, he had backed to the cupboard, opened it, and was feeling inside with his left hand. “My grateful thanks, and you'll convey my compliments—the Hawk's, you know—to our friend—the chief.” He had slipped the little black bag under his arm, and now his hand was back in the cupboard again; he had felt a ball of heavy cord there. “Sorry I haven't a phony ten-spot with me—my card, you know—unpardonable breach of etiquette—really!” He smiled suddenly. The ball of cord was in his hand, as he advanced toward the Butcher's chair. He set the little black bag down on the table.
The Butcher seemed to have lost all his characteristic ferocity; the sharp little ferret eyes rested anywhere but on the Hawk, and on his face was a sickly grin.
“Stand up!” commanded the Hawk curtly—he was knotting the end of the cord into a noose. “Now—your hands behind your back—and together! Thank you!” He slipped the noose over the Butcher's hands, and began to wind the cord around the other's wrists.
The Butcher winced.