Peter was up the stairs that led to the second floor in three swift, wary jumps. He heard a skurry of footsteps in the back of the house. Dashing a potted fern from its slender wooden stand, he grasped the end of the stand, and swinging it like a baseball bat, he pushed through velvet curtains into a large room. There was enough light there from the moon for him to see two black figures prying desperately at a door. They wheeled as he entered. Bending low he hurled himself at them as he had done when playing football on a back lot. There was a flash so near that it burned his face; he felt a sharp fork of pain cross his head as if his scalp had been slashed by a red-hot knife. With all the force in his taut body he swung the stand at the nearest man; it caught the man across the face and he went down with a broken, guttural cry. A second and a third shot from the revolver of the other man roared in Peter's ears. Still crouching, Peter dived through the darkness at the knees of the man with the gun; together they went to the floor in a cursing, grunting tangle.
The burglar struggled to jab down the butt of his revolver on the head of the small man who had fastened himself to him with the death grip of a mongoose on a cobra. They thrashed about the room. Peter had gotten a hold on the man's pistol wrist and he held to it while the man with his free hand rained blow after blow on the defenseless face and bleeding head of the little man. As they fought in the darkness, the burglar with a sudden violent wrench tore loose the clinging Peter, and hurled him against a table, which crashed to the floor with the impact of Peter's one hundred and thirty pounds of muscle and bone.
As Peter hurtled back, his arms shot out mechanically to break his fall; one groping hand closed on a heavy iron candle-stick that had stood on the table. He was up in a flash, the candle-stick in his hand. His eyes were blinded by the blood from his wound; he dashed the blood away with his coat-sleeve. With a short, sharp motion he hurled the candle-stick at his opponent's head, outlined against a window, not six feet away. At the moment the missile flew from Peter's hand, the yegg steadied himself and fired. Then he reeled to the floor as the candle-stick's heavy base struck him between the eyes.
For the ghost of a second, Peter Mullaney stood swaying; then his hands clawed at the place on his chest where his shield might have been as if his heart had caught fire and he wished to tear it out of himself; then, quite gently, he crumpled to the floor, and there was the quiet of night in the room.
As little Peter Mullaney lay in the hospital trying to see through his bandages the flowers Judy McNulty had brought him, he heard the voice of the doctor saying:
"Here he is. Nasty chest wound. We almost lost him. He didn't seem to care much whether he pulled through or not. Was delirious for hours. Kept muttering something about the Tropic of Capricorn. But I think he'll come through all right now. You just can't kill one of these tough little micks."
Peering through his bandages, Peter Mullaney saw the square shoulders and stern face of Commissioner Kondorman.
"Good morning, Mullaney," the Commissioner said, in his formal official voice. "I'm glad to hear that you're going to get better."
"Thank you, Commissioner," murmured Peter, watching him with wondering eyes.