Some of the men were engaged in discussion. Harry fancied that they were talking about him. Two men came in from the entrance. They talked with Volovick. They had probably been stationed outside to prevent Harry’s escape.
This began to worry Harry. How long would it be before they began a search for his hiding place?
The proprietor must know of its existence. Would he suggest that they look behind the revolving panel?
These thoughts, and the constant throbbing of his wounded arm, made time pass slowly and feverishly for Harry Vincent.
The whole affair was unexplainable, with one exception. He knew that he had been tricked by Volovick.
The fellow had followed Stanley Berger openly; had called the address aloud to the cab driver — all so Harry would trail him to the Pink Rat.
Harry Vincent’s conjecture that the proprietor knew of the hiding place behind the wall was quite correct. The ruddy-faced little man had planned that secret compartment himself, and he did not know that any other person knew of its existence. Hence he had no idea that Harry was hiding there.
The attack started by Volovick had been done without the proprietor’s approval. He had not even seen the intended victim. He was satisfied because the police had gone.
New patrons began to enter the den. Harry could see them through the peephole. They were typical denizens of the underworld. One by one they strode in, gazing curiously about them, and making no comment.
They had heard of the fight. They were looking the place over. But they asked no questions.
The presence of these newcomers was not encouraging to Harry.
Some of them might be in league with Volovick. None of them were known to Harry. He did not see a single friendly face in the crowd.
One individual, in particular, was most ugly. He was dressed in a shabby, dirty sweater. An unlighted cigarette clung to his lower lip. His face was grimy, and marked with short scars.
The man attracted Harry’s attention because of his sharp, knowing eyes. As he looked about him, he seemed to be ferreting out the thoughts of the others in the den.
Once or twice the man’s eyes rested on the wall, and Harry instinctively drew away from the peephole.
Did this gangster know of the hiding place? His eyes were so penetrating that Harry imagined he could see through the panel itself.
Placing his ear to the hole in the wall, Harry tried to catch the mumbled conversation; but without success. So he abandoned the effort.
He knew that the fight was under discussion. The newcomers were listening in on the talk. Particularly the ugly brute in the dirty sweater.
Volovick had become the center of those about him. He was speaking, and gesticulating. He was telling what had happened, and he shook one fist in the air, as a threat of vengeance.
HALF an hour went by; a long, tense period. Thirty minutes of painful waiting for the man behind the revolving panel.
Harry felt that he could not wait much longer. His arm troubled him; his nerves were on edge. He seemed stifled in this cramped hole in the wall.
He thought of the girl. She must be thinking of him. Somewhere, outside this miserable place, she was planning a rescue. But could she help him?
Harry could not picture her as a woman of the underworld. Any friends whom she might bring could not hope to attack this crowd of gangsters. Yet the girl was his only hope.
It was while Harry’s thoughts were dwelling on this subject that the unexpected happened.
Shifting his position, Harry leaned against the wall in front of him, and stretched his hand to one side. A feeling of hope came over him as he saw Volovick rise to leave the Pink Rat, while those around him seemed ready to depart.
In a few minutes his real enemies would be gone. The time for his deliverance would be at hand!
But as his thoughts took this trend, Harry’s wrist struck against a small bar at the side of the wall.
The panel swung outward. Harry lost his balance.
Unknowingly, he had released the catch; now he was precipitated headlong into the room where the gangsters stood.
Harry’s appearance was so unexpected that it took the mobsmen by surprise. They stood gaping at this man who had plunged from the wall. But as Harry rose to his knees, and turned his face upward, Volovick recognized him.
“That’s the man!” exclaimed Volovick. “Get him! Now!”
The first gangster to spring forward was the one who had been looking at the wall — the ugly man with the dirty sweater. He leaped straight at Harry, with a fiendish look upon his face.
Two others were coming from the side. Harry swung away from them, but he was directly in the path of the man who was coming toward them.
He put up his hands to ward off the man’s attack. But the sweater-clad gangster ignored him.
Instead of falling upon Harry, he threw himself against the other two men. Harry saw his fists swing with short, murderous punches. The two men, taken by surprise, went down beneath his blows.
With a shout, Volovick hurled himself forward. The scar-faced gangster crouched low, and caught Volovick’s wrist, hurling the man over his shoulder.
With his free hand he whipped a revolver from the fold of his sweater, and the staccato reports of the automatic reechoed through the room.
His shots were made with amazing precision. One crippled the wrist of a gunman, who had just drawn an automatic. Another clipped the hand of a man who was pulling a knife from beneath his coat.
Then, almost drowned by the echoes of the revolver shots, came the popping of electric light bulbs, as the scar-faced gangster used his unerring aim to plunge the room in semidarkness.
“Get to the door. Lie low against the wall.”
Harry obeyed the terse command which his rescuer uttered in a low voice. Dodging behind a table, he escaped all notice. Crouching by the door, he watched the finish of the astounding conflict.
THE men in the Pink Rat were toughened fighters. Even those who were not with Volovick recognized an enemy in the scar-faced gangster.
They saw him as he shot the lights. They threw themselves into the fray. Six of them leaped to the same objective.
The man in the sweater no longer depended upon his automatic. Seizing one of the light benches, he used it as a mighty cudgel, striking out amid the gloom.
He handled his strange weapon as easily as if it had been a cane. He struck down one attacker at the side. Turning, he met the others head-on, and Harry could hear the thud of falling bodies.
Revolver shots flashed through the semidarkness. Men screamed as the bullets found their mark. But through it all, the solitary fighter seemed gifted with a charmed existence.
With a mighty effort, he flung the bench across the room, where it struck a man and deflected the aim of the fellow’s automatic. Then the lone fighter was gone.
Curses and groans pervaded the room. Volovick’s flashlight appeared, directed toward the spot where the scar-faced gangster had waged his terrific fight. But it revealed only the forms of wounded gangsters who had fallen in the attack.
A hand plucked Harry Vincent by the arm. It was the man who had rescued him. The sweater-clad gangster had slipped between the tables, and had reached the door.
Together, he and Harry reached the stairs and hurried downward. Their flight was just in time. Shots came from behind them, and they could hear the cries of the thwarted gangsters.
The battle had been short and rapid. The sound of the shots had not yet attracted people from the street. Harry’s companion uttered a shrill whistle; a taxicab rolled up from a short distance away.
“Get in. Hurry!” commanded the gangster, in a low, weird voice. Harry obeyed.
The driver slammed the door.
Astonished. Harry looked for his companion. The man had disappeared.