Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/119

 Out into the street they burst, both of them, with a couple of shouting men in pursuit. New figures popped out of doors and took up the chase.

“To the taxi, Eddie!” shouted Val.

“Yes, sir,” returned Eddie, and fifty yards ahead of their pursuers, they made speed. They rounded the corner to the car.

The corner was bare of automobiles. The taxi had gone.

They glanced back for an instant. The pursuit was hot, and the pursuers’ numbers had been augmented.

“Stop thief!” some one shouted, and the neighborhood, which a moment before had been silent and slumberous, suddenly became a living maelstrom of humanity, swirling, streaming after the fugitives.

“To the subway, Mr. Morley!” panted Eddie. They turned at an acute angle and headed for the subway kiosk, two blocks away.

Through the night streets of the East Side they thundered, with the crowd after them, but nobody stopped their progress because, in the excitement, Val had forgotten to put away his gun, and he was still brandishing it as he ran. At last, still fifty yards to the good, they reached the kiosk.

Down the stairs they clattered, only to see the tail lights of a train pulling out. Too late!

A thunderous noise made itself heard in the tunnel.

“The other side!” panted Eddie. “There’s a train coming in.”

They leaped over the turnstiles, jumped down to the tracks, and scrambled up on the other side just as a train thundered in, missing them by little more than the proverbial hair. The doors of the train opened,