Maria’s eyes were like stars. Cunningham kissed her suddenly.
“My God!” he laughed shakily. “One can think of love-making even at a time like this! Listen!”
The crowd on the stairs had reached the top. They crowded down the hall before Cunningham’s own door. There they hesitated, shuffling uneasily. At last a voice called loudly, “Open in the name of the law!”
There was no answer from Cunningham’s empty room. They waited breathlessly. A man pounded cautiously on the panel of the door.
“Open in th’ name of th’ law!”
Still silence.
“M-maybe he j-jumped outer th’ window,” suggested someone uneasily.
“R-rush him,” urged a man safely in the rear.
Cunningham and Maria, two rooms away, heard a hand laid on the other room’s door. They heard it fling open with a crash and the scuttling of feet as the mob of hastily deputized men jumped to one side to be out of the way of possible bullets. Dead silence greeted them. And suddenly they crowded into the deserted place.
“Now!” said Cunningham sharply.