For the barest fraction of a second! Then the enemy regained his feet. Gary sensed, rather than saw, the arm uplifting as many voices raised in sudden clamor, and the sound of running footsteps echoed from the corridor he had quitted. He was aware of Nora Powell's cry, "Dr. Lane—look out! Oh, Gary—!"
Then the spinning world descended with brutal force upon his temple, the gloom split asunder into myriad whirling galaxies of fire, and he sank senseless to the floor!
"—Better now," said a voice from far, far away. "I think he can hear me. Gary, my boy! Are you all right?"
Gary lifted his head and groaned; opened his eyes to find himself looking up into the kindly face of Dr. Bryant. Beside the old astronomer, her mist-blue eyes wide with fear and something else Gary Lane was too dazed to decipher, stood Nora Powell, while beside her, cherubic cheeks gray with inarticulate outrage, was the small foreign physicist.
Recollection flooded back on Gary; swiveling his head he discovered that the flames which threatened the room had been extinguished. But how about—?
"Flick?" he muttered, struggling to rise. "Flick! Is he—?"
"O.Q., chum," growled Flick Muldoon, coming from behind him. "The firebug busted me, laid me out colder than a Laplander's kiss, but you got a worse smack than I did. I'm O.Q."
"And the—the films?" asked Gary fearfully.
"Safe," chuckled Muldoon, "as a pork pie at a Mohammedans' picnic. I went down, yeah—but I went down with 'em clutched to my manly buzzum! Our murderous friend, whoever he was, would have needed a can opener to get 'em out of my hands. Me, I've got instincts, I have!"