It was ascertained afterwards that two men darted like shadows out of a passage in Market Street, and separated instantly. One came toward East Broadway, where the detectives and their companions had just alighted from the car, and the other, breaking into a run, dived into Henry Street, with two patrolmen after him. He it was who opened the fray, and the peace of the night was suddenly disrupted by the loud bark of an automatic pistol. Three shots were fired with a quick irregularity, and then came the deeper report of a service revolver.
Steingall and Clancy ran forward, and the fugitive coming their way had actually passed them, with two more patrolmen in pursuit, when Steingall saw him and turned instantly.
"Stop!" he shouted.
The man only increased his pace, and the detective, astonishingly active for one of his bulk, raced along at top speed.
"Stop or I shoot!" he cried again.
By that time the self-confessed outlaw was nearly opposite the car. He checked his pace, half turned, luckily not to the side where Curtis and the others were standing, and leveled a Browning pistol at the detective. He even hesitated an instant to take aim, but before his finger had pressed the trigger, Curtis had sprung at him. There was no time for a blow, but a well placed kick spun the would-be murderer off his feet, and the crash of the shot came an infinitesimal part of a second too late. As it was, the bullet struck a lamp higher up the street, and a line taken subsequently showed that it must have missed Steingall by only a few inches.
The miscreant reeled, and lost his balance. Then Curtis closed with him, caught his right wrist, and threw him heavily, but, such was the man's frenzied resolve not to be arrested, that he fired twice again before the deadly weapon fell from his grasp. He did no damage, but the uproar brought a motley crowd from the neighboring dwellings. Market Street, which had seemed asleep or dead, proved itself very much alive and awake, but the sight of uniformed police hurrying up from several directions restrained any undue curiosity on the part of its denizens.
The desperado on the ground was handcuffed at once, and, while a policeman was searching his pockets rapidly to ascertain if he carried another pistol, Steingall gripped Curtis by the shoulder.
"I owe you something for that," he said quietly. "I rather fancy he would have dropped me if it hadn't been for you.… Oh, I know what I am saying. I shall not forget.… Show a light here," he added to a patrolman who had run from East Broadway on hearing the shooting. "Now, Mr. Curtis, do you recognize him?"
"Yes," said Curtis—-whose experiences in New York were revealing an unsuspected side of his character, for in 56th Street, in Morris Siegelman's, and now again in Market Street, he had proved himself what Allen Breck would have termed "a bonnie fighter"—"yes, that is the man who spoke to me in the Central Hotel. I imagine he is Martiny."