He paused, however, as did the others. Patsy lost no time in taking advantage of the fact. He squirmed out from under the man, leaving his coat in his enemy’s hands, and scrambled over the heap of bodies in the doorway.
Before the others realized what he was about, he was in the hall, facing them.
He had removed his automatic from Grantley’s ribs while he changed position, but now he thrust it back again.
“Did you hear me down there?” he demanded.
Simultaneously he produced another weapon with his left hand, dug that in turn into Grantley’s side, and, lifting the muzzle of the first automatic, trained it on the foremost of his foes.
He had made a decided change for the better, for he was now in the hall, with his opponents all in front of him, in plain sight, and the length of the three bodies between him and them.
“Keep back there!” he commanded, waving his upraised weapon a little and covering one after another of the crouching surgeons. “I’m just getting warmed up, and I wouldn’t advise you to make any false moves, unless you want to kiss yourselves good-by.”
Grantley had relaxed his throttling hold on Nick’s windpipe at Patsy’s first threat, but had taken a new and more dogged grip, while Nick’s assistant was so unceremoniously making his way over the detective’s unconscious form—and incidentally squeezing the breath out of Grantley himself, who was beneath.
When the muzzle of the automatic prodded him again, however, he let go a second time and lay quite still, contenting himself with cursing Patsy under his breath and calling on his own followers to rescue him.
It looked as if Patsy had turned the tables about as completely as possible.