Читать книгу The Running Fight онлайн

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"If only it has a key!" he thought; and the next moment he almost cried out joyfully, for he found that it had not only a key, but that it might be bolted from the inside.

"And when it's bolted," he assured himself, "What sound can penetrate beyond its walls?"

Beyond its walls! The phrase, somehow, kept ringing in his ears; to him there was music in it. He never thought of the walls themselves; nor had he ever asked himself whether behind those rich and heavy hanging curtains there might not be other means of exit.

He took his place behind the open door.

"Now for the crisis," he said calmly to himself.

And plunging his hand once more into his coat-pocket he produced a gun—a modern, hammerless revolver that he had selected with considerable care, after consulting the advertisements in the magazines, and after reading the booklets of their makers. This gun he had selected, not only on account of its particular efficiency, but also because of its remarkably repulsive look. It bore the same formidable appearance compared with the large family of fire-arms as the bull-dog does to his canine race. It was a weapon of peculiarly terrifying appearance—and that was what he wanted. For the rest, it was a .32 calibre, and upon its handle it bore the maker's name and a number—a number that belonged to this particular weapon and to no other weapon of this make in the whole wide world.