Part 27 (2/2)

As he raced along the slippery streets the night air was ripped again and again with those same loud reverberations. He saw, by the flickering arc-lamp above the crossing where he had just left Donnelly, another figure flying towards him, and recognized O'Connell.

Together they turned into Girod Street.

They were in time to see a flash from the shed that stood in front of Larubio's shop, then an answering spurt of flame from the side of the street upon which they were. The place was full of noise and smoke. At the farther crossing a man in a s.h.i.+ning rubber coat knelt and fired, then rose and scurried into the darkness beyond. Figures broke out from the shadows of the wooden awning in front of Larubio's shop and followed, some turning towards the left at Basin Street, others continuing on through the area lighted by the sputtering street light and into the night. One of them paused and looked back as if loath to leave the spot until certain of his work.

Side by side Blake and O'Connell raced towards the Chief, whom they saw lurching uncertainly along the banquette ahead of them. The detective was cursing; Blake sobbed through his tight-clenched teeth.

Donnelly was down when they reached him, and his empty revolver lay by his side. Norvin raised him with shaking arms, his whole body sick with horror.

”Are you badly--hit, old man?” he gasped.

”I'm--done for!” said the Chief, weakly. ”And the dagos did it.”

From an open window above them a woman began to scream loudly:

”Murder! Murder!”

The cry was taken up in other quarters and went echoing down the street.

Doors were flung wide, gates slammed, men came hurrying through the wet night, hurling startled questions at one another, but the powder smoke which hung sluggishly in the dark night air was sufficient answer. It floated in thin blue layers beneath the electric lights, gradually fading and melting as the life ebbed from the mangled body of Dan Donnelly.

It was nearing dawn when Norvin Blake emerged from the hospital whither Donnelly had been taken. The air was dead and heavy, a dripping winding-sheet of fog wrapped the city in its folds; no sound broke the silence of the hour. He was sadly shaken, for he had watched a brave soul pa.s.s out of the light, and in his ears the words of his friend were ringing:

”Don't let them get away with this, Norvin. You're the only man I trust.”

XIII

THE BLOOD OF HIS ANCESTORS

At the Central Station Norvin found a great confusion. City officials and newspaper men were coming and going, telephones were ringing, patrolmen and detectives, summoned from their beds, were reporting and receiving orders; yet all this bustling activity affected him with a kind of angry impatience. It seemed, somehow, perfunctory and inadequate; in the intensity of his feeling he doubted that any one else realized, as he did, the full significance of what had occurred.

As quickly as possible he made his way to O'Neil, the a.s.sistant Superintendent of Police, who was deep in consultation with Mayor Wright. For a moment he stood listening to their talk, and then, at the first pause, interposed without ceremony:

”Tell me--what is being done?”

O'Neil, who had not seemed to note his approach, answered without a hint of surprise at the interruption:

”We are dragging the city.”

”Of course. Have you arrested Larubio, the cobbler?”

”No!” Both men turned to Blake now with concentrated attention.

”Then don't lose a moment's time. Arrest all his friends and a.s.sociates. Look for a man in a rubber coat. I saw him fire. There's a boy, too,” he added, after a moment's pause, ”about fourteen years old. He was hiding at the corner. I think he must have been their picket; at any rate, he knows something.”

The a.s.sistant Superintendent noted these directions, and listened impa.s.sively while Norvin poured forth his story of the murder. Before it was fairly concluded he was summoned elsewhere, and, turning away abruptly, he left the room, like a man who knows he must think of but one thing at a time. The young man, wiping his face with uncertain hand, turned to the Mayor.

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