a deadened roar of wrath.

On the instant, aware that further subterfuge could be of no avail,
Griggs swaggered defiance.

"And what if it is true?" he drawled, with a resumption of his
aristocratic manner, while his eyes swept the group balefully. He
plucked the police whistle from his waistcoat-pocket, and raised it to
his lips.

He moved too slowly. In the same moment of his action, Garson had pulled
the pistol from his pocket, had pressed the trigger. There came no spurt
of flame. There was no sound--save perhaps a faint clicking noise. But
the man with the whistle at his lips suddenly ceased movement, stood
absolutely still for the space of a breath. Then, he trembled horribly,
and in the next instant crashed to the floor, where he lay rigid, dead.

"Damn you--I've got you!" Garson sneered through clenched teeth. His
eyes were like balls of fire. There was a frightful grin of triumph
twisting his mouth in this minute of punishment.

In the first second of the tragedy, Dick had not understood. Indeed, he
was still dazed by the suddenness of it all. But the falling of Griggs
before the leveled weapon of the other man, there to lie in that ghastly
immobility, made him to understand. He leaped toward Garson--would have
wrenched the pistol from the other's grasp. In the struggle, it fell to
the floor.

Before either could pick it up, there came an interruption. Even in the
stress of this scene, Chicago Red had never relaxed his professional
caution. A slight noise had caught his ear, he had stooped, listening.
Now, he straightened, and called his warning.

"Somebody's opening the front door!"

Garson forgot his weapon in this new alarm. He sprang to the octagonal
window, even as Dick took possession of the pistol.

"The street's empty! We must jump for it!" His hate was forgotten now
in an emotion still deeper, and he turned to Mary. His face was all
gentleness again, where just before it had been evil incarnate, aflame
with the lust to destroy. "Come on, Mary," he cried.

Already Chicago Red had snapped off the lights of the chandelier, had
sprung to the window, thrown open a panel of it, and had vanished into
the night, with Dacey at his heels. As Garson would have called out to
the girl again in mad anxiety for haste, he was interrupted by Dick:

"She couldn't make it, Garson," he declared coolly and resolutely. "You
go. It'll be all right, you know. I'll take care of her!"

"If she's caught----!" There