He could not say who that one passenger might be; but he could guess; and guessing, knew the automatic in his grasp to be useless; he dared not fire at the gangster for fear of loosing a wild bullet into the body of the car....
Now they were within fifty feet of one another. By contrast with the apparent slowness of the touring car to get in motion, the limousine seemed already to have attained locomotive speed.
A yell and a shot from one of November's revolvers (P. Sybarite saw the bullet score the asphalt not two feet from the forward wheel) warned them to clear the way as the gang leader's car swerved wide to pass them.
And on this the touring car seemed to get out of control, swinging across the street. Immediately the other, crowded to the gutter, attempted to take the curb, but, the wheels meeting it at an angle not sufficiently acute, the manoeuvre failed. To a chorus of yells November's driver shut down the brakes not a thought too soon—not soon enough, indeed, to avoid a collision that crumpled a mudguard as though it had been a thing of pasteboard.
Simultaneously P. Sybarite's chauffeur set the brakes, and with the agility of a hounded rabbit seeking its burrow, dived from his seat to the side of the car farthest from the gangsters.
In an instant he was underneath it.
P. Sybarite, on the other hand, had leaped before the accident.
Staggering a pace or two—and all the time under fire—he at length found his feet not six feet from the limousine. It had stopped broadside on. In this position he commanded the front seats without great danger of sending a shot through the body.
His weapon rose mechanically and quite deliberately he took aim—making assurance doubly sure throughout what seemed an age made sibilant by the singing past his head of the infuriated gangster's bullets.
But his finger never tightened upon the trigger.