Then, if ever, Steele Weir had displayed his amazing speed in beating an enemy to his gun, for Vorse had indeed been quick, keyed by a knowledge that for him this meant imprisonment or freedom, a slow death or liberty.
For a minute he stood half crouching as he had been at the instant of shooting, his eyes glaring balefully at his enemy and the thin cruel smile on his lips, while the two men in front stood warily waiting with weapons extended. Then Vorse clutched at his breast, muttered thickly and toppled over full length on the floor.
The sharp pungent smell of powder smoke mingled with the reek of liquor.
“He’s dead,” Madden said.
“Yes.”
“Are you hit?”
“No. His bullet went past my hip; he never got his gun up.”
Madden glanced about towards the rear of the room. A command for Sorenson to stop broke from his lips. Next he fired. And Weir swinging his look that way saw Sorenson’s form, untouched by the bullet, vanishing through the rear door into the night. Using the minute that the two men’s surveillance had been lifted he had escaped.
“Hard luck when we had him,” Weir growled.