"Tunin' up!" commented the chauffeur grimly. "Sounds to me like they was about ready to commence!"
P. Sybarite shut his teeth on a nervous tremor and lost a shade or two of colour.
"Ready?" he said with difficulty.
The chauffeur's reply was muffled by another volley; on the echoes of which the little man saw the nose of a car poke diagonally out of the garage door, pause, swerve a trifle to the right, and pause once again....
"They're coming!" he cried wildly. "Stand by, quick!"
The alarm was taken up and repeated by two-score throats, while those dotting the street and sidewalks near by broke in swift panic and began madly to scuttle to shelter within doorways and down basement steps....
Like an arrow from the string, November's car broke cover at an angle. Ignoring the slanting way from threshold to gutter, it took the bump of the curb apparently at full tilt, and skidded to the northern curb before it could be brought under control and its course shaped eastward.
With a shiver P. Sybarite recognised that car.
It was not the taxicab that he had been led to expect, but the same maroon-coloured limousine into which he had assisted Marian Blessington at the Bizarre.
On its front seats were two men—Red November himself at the driver's side, a revolver in either hand. And the body of the car contained one passenger, at least, if P. Sybarite might trust to an impression gained in one hasty glance through the forward windows as the car bore down upon them—November's weapons spitting fire....