Then the gangster remembered that he was to effect the earlier entry, prior to the arrival of Hymie Schultz from the front.
He opened the door, and edged in, holding his automatic in readiness. The slight opening of the door revealed a huddled form across the kitchenette — a form that looked like a man.
Without waiting to close the door, Spirak raised his automatic, but he was a second too late. A burst of flame came from the opposite corner.
Four-gun Spirak fell, with three bullets in his body.
Hymie Schultz heard the shots from the front of the apartment, just as he had unlocked the front door. He burst into the place and ran into another man who rose to meet him.
Hymie pulled the trigger of his automatic just as his antagonist seized his wrist, and diverted the shots. The two went down in a heap.
They grappled in the darkness; then Schultz managed to bump his opponent behind the ear. Schultz’s gun had fallen to the floor, and as he reached for it, another man leaped upon him.
Schultz went backward, holding his gun, and fired wildly, as an oath escaped his lips.
Those words spelled his doom. The sound of his voice betrayed him. His opponent had not been sure whether he was friend or foe. But now the muzzle of a revolver was pressed against the side of Hymie’s head, and three shots entered his brain.
The man who had killed Hymie Schultz arose and calmly turned on the light in the apartment. The glare revealed the sinister form of John Genara.
It was Tony Anelmo who had been knocked out by Hymie Schultz, but the disabled Sicilian had now recovered.
An exclamation of amazement escaped Genara’s lips.
“Look!” he cried. “Hymie Schultz!”
Leaving his bewildered companion, he dashed to the kitchenette and turned on the light, to reveal the form of the other dead man. He recognized the face of Four-gun Spirak.
Genara hurried back to the front of the apartment and seized Anelmo by the arm.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ve killed Schultz and Spirak!”
“Where is Monk Thurman?”
“I don’t know. We’ve got to get out.”
The Homicide Twins hurried to the street. Only a few minutes had transpired since the shooting. No one had yet arrived on the scene. Genara drew Anelmo into a side alley, and they moved along quietly but hastily.
“No one must know of this,” insisted Genara. “That is, no one must know that we were mixed in it.”
“We owed it to them,” replied Anelmo.
“That’s good enough. But we’re in wrong with the big shot now, on account of that trouble at Marmosa’s.”
“Maybe he’ll be glad to hear about this.”
“What! After he’s been trying to patch up with Larrigan? We’ll be in wrong if this is hung on us. Let them think that Thurman did it. That may give us an excuse to get him later on, after Larrigan squawks to Savoli.”
Anelmo nodded his agreement, and the two men continued to hurry from the vicinity of the apartment house where they had laid in ambush awaiting the return of Monk Thurman and whoever might be with him.
Both Genara and Anelmo had believed that they were fighting the New York gunman, for the entrance of Schultz and Spirak had been almost simultaneous.
NEITHER of the Sicilians had looked behind when they had hastened to the alley. Hence they did not see the man who stepped into view from behind a telegraph pole. This was none other than Monk Thurman.
He had observed the actions of Hymie Schultz and Four-gun Spirak, and had been waiting to see what happened. He had also recognized the Sicilians. He had expected some one to flee from the apartment after the shooting.
Monk entered the apartment house immediately. He walked calmly upstairs, and entered his apartment. He discovered the bodies of Larrigan’s men. He made some slight changes in their positions, then paced up and down the lighted apartment for a few minutes.
He heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. He opened the door, and was met by two policemen. Each officer held a revolver.
“What’s been going on here?” demanded one of the officers.
He stopped suddenly as he saw the body of Hymie Schultz.
“Did you kill this man?” he questioned.
“If I did,” replied Thurman quietly, “it was in self-defense, officer.”
He was standing with his hands slightly raised. The second policeman gripped him by the arm. The gangster made no effort to escape.
“My name is Monk Thurman,” he said quietly. “I come from New York. This man is a gunman who tried to kill me. You see what happened to him. Look down the hallway to the kitchen, and you will see what happened to his helper.”
Both policemen instinctively turned in the direction indicated. The body of Four-gun Spirak lay in full view. It commanded momentary attention on the part of the policemen; and Monk Thurman took advantage of that opportunity.
With a quick twist he wrested himself free from the policeman who held him and sent the officer staggering against his companion. Then he was off down the stairs.
Revolver shots followed, but they were futile. The escaping gangster had reached the turn in the stairway. He continued downward, and bowled over two men who stood in his path.
Reaching the sidewalk, he saw a milk wagon standing there. One of the men whom he had encountered on the stairway was the driver.
Monk leaped into the wagon, and two men who were coming up the street were witnesses of an old-fashioned getaway. The fleeing gangster urged the horse forward at top speed.
He was out of revolver range when the policemen reached the street. The wagon whirled around a corner on two wheels; then the clatter of hoofs died away.
THE first edition of the afternoon newspapers carried sensational tidings of Chicago’s latest gang murder. Two men who had long troubled the police had been eliminated from further activities. Hymie Schultz and Four-gun Spirak were notorious characters. Their pictures adorned the front pages of the journals.
The name of Monk Thurman figured in the stories. Until now, the New Yorker had been an unknown quantity in Chicago, so far as the police and the public were concerned.
Now editors were sending wild telegrams to New York, in an effort to learn of Thurman’s past career. No pictures of the Manhattan gangster were available. He had been a successful camera dodger.
There were no clews in the apartment. Evidently, Monk had used the place as a blind, for he had left nothing there. He had apparently escaped with the guns that he had used to kill his enemies. The bullets proved that different revolvers had been used against Schultz and Spirak.
Keen journalists sought to find a motive in the affray. Had Thurman been identified with any Chicago mob, the killing would have presaged a new gang war. As it was, the New Yorker appeared to be a free agent.
Both Genara and Anelmo read the accounts with interest, and felt real satisfaction in the fact that Thurman had arrived at the scene of the crime before the police.
They realized that matters would be serious for them if they were known as the murderers. Larrigan had made statements to the press, and anything that might connect Nick Savoli with the killings would mean the beginning of gang war.
ONLY three men knew the truth of the affair at the apartment house. Genara and Anelmo intended to say nothing. Monk Thurman was evidently willing to take the blame.
For once, the grapevine telegraph of gangdom, that secret channel through which many facts became known to the underworld, was silent and inactive.
Every Chicago mobster, from the weakest hoodlum to the big shot himself, was completely fooled by the network of circumstantial evidence that pointed to Monk Thurman.
It was not surprising that Nick Savoli and Mike Borrango were deceived. Both had expected a battle between their new torpedo and Larrigan’s allies. For once, the big shot grinned, as he gloated over the newspaper reports, and his prime minister also wore a smile of enjoyment.