Clifford heard the door open and sharply close, heard Mary cry out—and then heard another struggle, with Mary gasping. He gave a desperate wrench, and the pistol was his: he did not then know that his comparatively easy victory over the powerful Bradley was over a half-dazed man—that his catapultic leap had driven the falling Bradley’s head against the corner of the table. Raising the pistol, held club-wise, Clifford twice struck at where Bradley’s head should be. At the second blow Bradley’s grappling arms relaxed, and he was suddenly limp.
Clifford sprang to his feet, fumbled for the switch, found it, and turned it on. Out of the blackness there leaped before Clifford’s eyes the other struggle, Mary Regan its center, her cloak torn loose and slipping from one shoulder. Loveman was gripping her left arm, and Hilton had her struggling right arm in a twisting clutch. A tiny bright something flashed in Hilton’s right hand and made a stab at the white arm he held.
But even as this picture was revealed, Clifford sprang toward Hilton; while Mr. Morton blinking from the darkness, started, bewildered, toward the two. “Look out!” warningly cried Loveman—but too late, for as the bright fang touched Mary’s arm, Clifford’s fist caught Hilton under the jaw. Hilton, fairly lifted from his feet, went spinning and fell in a loose heap. Clifford whirled upon Loveman, but Loveman was backing away, a pasty smile on his full face, and his hands held up.
“I’m not doing a thing, Bob,” gasped the little man—“honest, not a thing!”
“Better keep on doing it!” said Clifford, and blew his whistle.
“What’s—what’s happened?” panted Mary.
“Nothing—except some parties have just tried to kidnap you, first trying to shoot a hypo into you.”
“Kidnap me! What for?”
“To shut you up—get you out of the way—later, to frame you to suit their own purpose. But you’re bleeding!” Clifford whipped out a handkerchief and bound the arm. Then he picked up from the floor the syringe that had fallen from Hilton’s hand and examined it. “It’s still loaded, so you got nothing more than a scratch of the needle.”
At this moment Jimmie Kelly entered, answering Clifford’s whistle. With Jimmie’s help Clifford put handcuffs first upon Loveman and then upon Hilton and Bradley, who had both begun to revive.