Both policemen instinctively turned in the direction indicated. The body of Four-gun Spirak lay in full view. It commanded momentary attention on the part of the policemen; and Monk Thurman took advantage of that opportunity.
With a quick twist he wrested himself free from the policeman who held him and sent the officer staggering against his companion. Then he was off down the stairs.
Revolver shots followed, but they were futile. The escaping gangster had reached the turn in the stairway. He continued downward, and bowled over two men who stood in his path.
Reaching the sidewalk, he saw a milk wagon standing there. One of the men whom he had encountered on the stairway was the driver.
Monk leaped into the wagon, and two men who were coming up the street were witnesses of an old-fashioned getaway. The fleeing gangster urged the horse forward at top speed.
He was out of revolver range when the policemen reached the street. The wagon whirled around a corner on two wheels; then the clatter of hoofs died away.
THE first edition of the afternoon newspapers carried sensational tidings of Chicago’s latest gang murder. Two men who had long troubled the police had been eliminated from further activities. Hymie Schultz and Four-gun Spirak were notorious characters. Their pictures adorned the front pages of the journals.
The name of Monk Thurman figured in the stories. Until now, the New Yorker had been an unknown quantity in Chicago, so far as the police and the public were concerned.
Now editors were sending wild telegrams to New York, in an effort to learn of Thurman’s past career. No pictures of the Manhattan gangster were available. He had been a successful camera dodger.
There were no clews in the apartment. Evidently, Monk had used the place as a blind, for he had left nothing there. He had apparently escaped with the guns that he had used to kill his enemies. The bullets proved that different revolvers had been used against Schultz and Spirak.