She did not stand on ceremony. Stepping back a pace, she threw her sturdy form against the door. It gave way, letting her into a hallway. To the right of the hallway was a door.
A man was in the act of springing at her when someone from behind exclaimed:
“Wait! It’s a frail!”
The words appeared to upset the other’s plans, or at least to halt them for a second.
During that second the girl plunged head foremost. Striking him amidships, she capsized him and took all the wind from his sail in one and the same instant.
She regained her balance just in time to see a long, blue gun being leveled at her. It was in the hand of the evil-eyed one.
Not for naught had she labored in the gymnasium. Before the gun flashed, it went whirling through space, crashed a window and was gone.
As for the evil-eyed one, he too vanished. At the same moment three stolid policemen came stamping in. The newsboy had done yeoman duty.
The offender who had been overturned by Florence was duly mopped up. The evil-eyed one was sought in vain. Groaning in a corner was the short Frenchman.
His arms were bound behind him in a curious fashion; in fact they were so bound by ropes and a stick that his arms might have been twisted from their sockets, and this by a few simple turns of that stick.