Meanwhile, the stranger did not turn to look back. The very thunder of the traveling crane appeared to lend new speed to his limbs. Perhaps he imagined the entire place to be swarming with men engaged in pursuing him. A surprised look overspread his face, as Johnny, not three feet to the right of him, swung past.
The man instantly dodged back and dropped to the floor, but Johnny, leaping from his iron swing, was upon him before he could get to his feet again.
There followed a second struggle similar to the first. This stranger was a contortionist, there could be no question about that now. Before three minutes had elapsed, he had again wriggled like an eel from Johnny’s grasp and had dashed through the door to freedom.
In disgust, Johnny sat up and dabbed at some scratches on his face which were bleeding. “Never saw anything like that,” he grumbled.
Above him the traveling crane hung in impressive silence. He gazed up at the driver’s cab. All was motionless there. But what was that? Did he see one of the landing doors on the fourth floor open a crack, then close again? He thought so, but in the pale moonlight that streamed in through the windows he could not be sure.
“Fate seems to mock at a fellow sometimes,” he mumbled. “Look at the luck I had, that trip on the crane and everything, and then look at the luck I didn’t have; he got away!”
He moved a foot to rise, and something jangled beside it.
“What?”
He put out his hand and took up a bar of steel. For a second he flashed a light upon it. His heart beat wildly; the steel was blue—the bluest steel he had ever seen.
“It’s one of the stolen bars,” he muttered. “Lost it out of his pocket.”