“Look out for him,” admonished Guilfoyle. “He’s got a gat.”
Heath took the lead up the worn steps which led from the pavement to the little vestibule. Without ringing, he roughly grasped the door-knob and shook it. The door was unlocked, and we stepped into the stuffy lower hallway.
A bedraggled woman of about forty, in a disreputable dressing-gown, and with hair hanging in strings over her shoulders, emerged suddenly from a rear door and came toward us unsteadily, her bleary eyes focused on us with menacing resentment.
“Say!” she burst out, in a rasping voice. “What do youse mean by bustin’ in like this on a respectable lady?” And she launched forth upon a stream of profane epithets.
Heath, who was nearest her, placed his large hand over her face, and gave her a gentle but firm shove backward.
“You keep outa this, Cleopatra!” he advised her, and began to ascend the stairs.
The second-floor hallway was dimly lighted by a small flickering gas-jet, and at the rear we could distinguish the outlines of a single door set in the middle of the wall.
“That’ll be Mr. Skeel’s abode,” observed Heath.
He walked up to it and, dropping one hand in his right coat-pocket, turned the knob. But the door was locked. He then knocked violently upon it, and placing his ear to the jamb, listened. Snitkin stood directly behind him, his hand also in his pocket. The rest of us remained a little in the rear.
Heath had knocked a second time when Vance’s voice spoke up from the semidarkness.