The door crashing back against the wall again, the Wolf’s baffled yell of rage, and an abortive shot, told him that his ruse had been solved. He was running now, as rapidly as he could in the darkness and in the narrow space between the Spider’s house and the wall of the brick building. Yells in increasing volume sounded from the direction of “The Yellow Lantern”; and now he could hear the pound of feet racing across the courtyard toward the antique shop. The woman, from the open window above, was still screaming with terror.
If he could gain the door in the fence—and the lane! But there was still the Wolf to reckon with! The Wolf had only to run through the kitchen and out by the back entrance—the shorter distance of the two. But the Wolf had already lost a few seconds so that now the race was a gamble. Could he, Jimmie Dale, get there first! He could not run in the other direction—that would take him into the courtyard, and the courtyard now, as evidenced by the yells and shouting, was filled with an excited crowd emptying from the dance hall.
He reached the rear end of the house, and darted across the wider space here, racing for the opening in the fence—and suddenly changed his tactics, and began to zigzag a little. A revolver flash cut the night. Came the Wolf’s howl from the back stoop, and, over his shoulder, Jimmie Dale saw the other, dark-shadowed, leap forward in pursuit—and heard the Wolf fire again.
He flung himself against the fence door, and it gave with a crash. Pandemonium reigned behind him. In a blur he saw the courtyard, that was dimly lighted now by the open doors and open windows of the dance hall, swaying with shapes, and, like ghostly figures, a mob tearing toward him down the alleyway.
The Wolf’s voice, punctuated with a torrent of blasphemy and vile invective, shrilled out over the tumult:
“Come on! Here he is! Out in the lane!”
“Who is it?” shrilled another voice.
“I don’t know!” yelled the Wolf. “Catch him, and we’ll damn soon find out!”
Jimmie Dale was running like a hare now down the lane. The Wolf leading, still firing, the crowd poured out into the lane in pursuit. Jimmie Dale zigzagged no longer, there was greater risk in that than in risking the shots—it was black enough in the lane to risk the shots; but his lead, barely twenty-five yards, was too short to risk their gaining upon him through his running from side to side.
His brain, cool in peril, worked swiftly. The Sanctuary! That was the one chance for his life! He had been no more than a masked figure huddled against the wall of the room in there. The Wolf had not recognised him. He would be safe if he could reach the Sanctuary! There were two blocks to go along the street ahead, then the next lane, and from that into the intersecting lane, the loose board in the fence that swung at a touch, the French window—and the Sanctuary. But to accomplish this he must gain upon his pursuers, not merely hold his own, but increase the distance between them by at least another fifteen or twenty yards; he must, in other words, be out of range of vision as he disappeared through the fence. Well, he should be able to do that! It was the trained athlete against an ill-conditioned, dissolute mob!
He swerved from the lane into the street. There was grim and hellish humour in the thought that a wolf should be leading the snarling, howling pack, blood mad now, at his heels! The Wolf had ceased firing—obviously because the Wolf’s revolver was empty. The others, a lesser breed, and previously intent on a peaceful orgy at the dance hall, were evidently not armed.
Jimmie Dale gained five yards, another five, and another ten. He had no fear of being recognised as Smarlinghue even here, where, poorly illuminated as the street was, it was like bright sunlight compared with the darkness of the lane. There was no stooped, bent figure, no slouching gait—there was, instead, a tall, broad-shouldered man, whose face was masked, and who ran with the speed of a greyhound, and whose automatic, spitting ahead of him as he ran, invited none of the few pedestrians, or those rushing to their doorways, to block his path.
He swerved again, into a lane again, the lane he had been making for; and, as he swerved, he flung a sidelong glance down the street. Yes, his twenty-five yards were fifty now, except for the Wolf, who ran perhaps ten yards in advance of any of the others. The howls, yells, shouts and execrations welled into a louder outburst as he dashed into the lane. Ten from fifty left forty. Forty yards clear! It was a very narrow margin, even allowing for the blackness of the lane—but it was enough—it was slightly more than the distance along the intersecting lane to the rear of the Sanctuary—he would have pushed aside that loose board before the Wolf turned the corner from one lane into the other!
Forty yards! Perhaps he could make it forty-five! Forty-five would be safer; and—he reeled suddenly, and staggered, and, with a low cry, his hands reached upward to his temples. His head was swimming—a dizziness, a nausea was upon him—his strength seemed as it were being sapped from his limbs. What was it? He—yes—the wound in his leg! Yes—he remembered now—that burning like the searing of a hot iron. He had forgotten it in the excitement. But it could not amount to anything—or he would not have been able to have come this far. It was only a passing giddiness—he was better now—see, he was still running—he had only slowed his pace for an instant—that was all.
They swept into the lane behind him. He looked back—and his lips grew tight, and bitter hard. It was no longer forty yards—he was not running so fast now—and it was the Wolf, and the Wolf’s pack, who were gaining.
He swerved for the third time—into the stretch of intersecting lane. The Sanctuary was just ahead, but he must reach that loose board in the fence and have disappeared before the Wolf swung around the corner behind him—or else—or else, since that led to nowhere to the French window of Smarlinghue’s room, the game was as good as up if he attempted it!
He strained forward, striving to mass his strength and fling it into one supreme effort. He was close now—only another five yards to go. Yes—he was weak. His teeth set. Four yards—three! If only there were not that glimmer of light, faint as it was, seeping down the lane from the street lamp across the road from the Sanctuary! Two yards—now! No! The Wolf’s yell, as the man tore around the corner of the two lanes, rang out like a knell of doom.
Drawn, white-faced, Jimmie Dale, stumbling now, lurched past that loose board he had counted upon for what was literally his life—lurched past, and stumbled on. He could not run much farther. There was one chance left—just one—that there should be no one to see him enter the front door of the Sanctuary, no one lounging about, no one in the tenement doorway. If that chance failed—well, then it was the end—the end of Smarlinghue, the end of Jimmie Dale, the end of Larry the Bat, the end of the Gray Seal—and the Wolf would have kept his pledge to gangland. But it would be an end that gangland would long remember, and an end that the Wolf would share!
The street was just before him now. He turned into it—and there came a little cry, a moan almost, of relief. The doorway of the tenement was clear. He sprang for it, entered, and, suddenly silent now in his tread, reached the door of his own room, slipped through and closed it softly behind him.
And now Jimmie Dale worked with frantic speed. He could hear them racing, yelling, shouting along the lane. A match crackled in his hand, and the gas-jet spluttered into flame—the light in the room could not be seen from the lane. He ran across the room, tearing off his mask as he went, and, wrenching the cash-box from his pocket, tucked mask and cash-box behind the disordered array of dirty canvases on the floor—he dared not take the risk or the time that loosening the base board would entail. He flung his hat into a corner, and, ripping off his coat, tossed it upon the cot; then, snatching up a paint tube, he smeared a daub of paint upon the palette that lay on the table, and laid a wet brush hurriedly several times across the canvas on the easel.
From the corner of the lane and street outside came the scuffling to and fro of many feet, as though in uncertainty, in indecision, in hesitancy. A dozen voices spoke at once, high-pitched, wild, frenzied.
“Where