The weapon exploded.
A bullet tore a hole in the floor.
Nick lost his footing and pitched backward over the falling table, nearly into the arms of Sadie Badger.
She was ready for him and threw him to one side, and Nick fell to the floor with a crash that shook its timbers.
In another instant, though the entire sensational episode occupied hardly more than that, Goulard and Ben Badger, with their two confederates, were upon the prostrate form of the detective, crushing his arms and legs to the floor and holding him powerless.
“You lie still, blast you, or I’ll fix you so there’ll be no need of telling you to do so,” Goulard cried fiercely, pressing the muzzle of a revolver to Nick’s head.
“If he don’t, I will,” supplemented Badger, with a knife at the detective’s throat.
Nick gazed up at their threatening faces and permitted his vainly strained muscles to relax. None yet had recognized him, despite that his false mustache had been partly torn from his lips and was dangling over one ear.
Yielding to the inevitable, therefore, for no mortal man could have overcome such odds and such a disadvantage, Nick said coolly:
“Don’t hurry, gentlemen! There’ll be time enough to settle this matter in a decent way. I’m not fool enough to oppose such a bunch of blacklegs. Take your time. I’ll keep quiet.”