All Story Magazine, December 1913 — page 112: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

822 THE it seemed to cause him an effort, and Campbell reached the third step of the stairs as Borrowman, answering his daughter’s advice with an oath, raised his handcuffed hands and pointed an accusing finger at the Gregarach. “You done i'r me!” he exploded hoarsely, as if it had just occurred to him. ‘ You took my gun an’ t’rowed me down!” More frothy oaths that allowed Campbell to reach the fifth step. “Tl fix ye! I’ve got your num- ber! If they're gonna pull me, they’re -gonna pull you—Mr. Rob Roy!” Campbell had reached the seventh step, upon a level with Margaret, Alice, and I, Parks sprang forward, and his right hand, bearing Borrowman’s revolver, caine up sharply. With a wild scream, a small female figure leaped out of a startled detect- ive’s grasp and, in a twinkling, fast- ened herself upon Parks’s right arm, while another, who did not scream, but whose cheeks were deathly white, threw herself between Campbell and any bullets that might happen to come along. “G6, Bobs gol” The words were lost in the roar of the crowd; but I heard a deep laugh, and had a vision of an enormous figure leaping up the steps and filling the ves- tibule for a second. “Gude nicht—Mr. Polisman!”’ And the front door of No. 314 closed with a bang just as Parks, free from Della’s hold, bounded up the steps. Confusion! Everything happened in a minute. There were people everywhere, yell- ing and running and getting in the way of the detectives and two more police- men, who practically fought their way into the midst of things. Della, recaptured and handcuffed, was turned over to one of them; the other took charge of the frothing Bor- rowman, who was screaming to Parks: * Grab him, mister! Grab him!” ALL-STORY MAGAZINE. Then Parks’s two subordinates joined him with a rush as he was rat- tling the door at a great rate. Résie came farther down the steps, grinning, Alice, white and anxious, came near to Margaret and me, and we stood hud- dled together, waiting to see to what length Parks would go. We were ig- nored almost completely, probably be- cause we were mostly ladies, and be- cause Parks was after bigger game. “Watch the basement!” he thun- dered to those below, and the basement door clanged. No one came out. There was a crash of breaking glass as Parks smashed the panel of the door with the butt of the revolver. In another half minute he had rushed into the hall, followed by the others, all with revolvers drawn, ready for unpleasantness. Not a sound greeted them—nothing. They became very cautious, as if they thought Campbell might be hiding behind the hat-rack. ‘Then, when they had poked their heads into the parlor and the room of Rollins’s late im- prisonment, they scurried about the hall, at a loss whether to go up or down. Parks decided to go down, and took a companion along. The other stayed to watch the stairs. In the face of desperate men, that descent of the basement stairway would have been nothing short of sui- cide, and Parks had every reason to believe that he was in the den of clever and unscrupulous criminals. Down they went, carefully, slowly, prepared for anything. And all that took time — precious minutes that were beyond price to the man they were after. In the pause that their absence created, while I listened for the sound of strife, I looked about me; at the seething crowd that was growing to alarming dimensions; at the grisly thing upon the sidewalk,-now covered with a white sheet; at Della, placid comicloooks.com