Now, with one accord, they looked to Herbert Carpenter for further orders.
STUNNED by the quickness of the attack, the blackmail king was unable to make a move. He knew that killers had been loosed to wreak frightful vengeance. He had caused deaths indirectly in the past; but never before had he loosed thunderbolts like these.
Dimly, the blackmailer realized that police were on their way. Action must be prompt. Should he order Borglund’s gorillas to flee and take to flight with them? Or were these living men — Morton and Gorman — a menace that should not remain?
Carpenter’s decision turned to money. He had come here to demand Gifford Morton’s wealth. Now was his chance to get it! He was about to order the gangsters to desist, and merely hold their helpless prey, when an unexpected incident turned the whole situation.
Gorman, wild with fright, leaped suddenly to his feet and tried to run toward the inner room. Three revolvers harked. One — a split second ahead of the others — clipped the fleeing secretary. He sprawled headlong across the body of a dead detective, his uncontrollable fall carrying him clear of the other shots.
A raucous laugh came from the gangster who had fired the first bullet. The man followed the laugh with an order — his privilege, evidently, since he had acted in Carpenter’s place.
“Come on,” he snarled. “Plug Four Eyes” — he indicated the bespectacled secretary — “until he’s full of lead. Bump off Old Beefy in the corner. Clean out the place and scram!”
“Hold it!” interrupted Carpenter, striding toward the corner. “I’m running things here!”
He turned to Gifford Morton, who had risen to his feet and was standing, defiant, in the corner.
“We’re letting you off, Morton,” said Carpenter. “Keep mum — you understand? Come across — hand over the cash! That will make it quits!”