door, now
took his cue and threw it open, and, grabbing Wallingford by the arm,
suddenly pulled him forward. "This is the real thing," he said in a
hoarse whisper. "We've got to make a get-away or go up. They're
fierce on us here if the pinch once comes."

"Hello, boys," broke in a third new voice, and then the real shock
came. The third new voice was not in the play at all, and the
consternation it wrought was more than ludicrous.

Wallingford, drawing back for a moment, was nearly knocked off his
feet by fat Badger Billy's dashing past him through that door to the
back stairway, closely followed by Mr. Phelps, and Mr. Phelps was
trailed almost as closely by the gaunt man of the badge. Glancing
toward the door, Mr. Wallingford smiled beatifically. The cause of all
this sudden exodus was huge Harvey Willis, in his blue suit and brass
buttons and helmet, with a club in his hand, who, making one dive for
the husky red-faced man as he, too, was bent on disappearing, whanged
him against the wall with a blow upon the head from his billy; and as
the red-faced man fell over, Harvey grabbed the black bag. The crash
of a breaking water-pitcher from the adjoining room, the shrill voice
of a protesting and frightened landlady as she came tearing up the
stairs, and the clamor of one of those lightning-collected mobs in
front of the house around the patrol-wagon, created a diversion in
the midst of which Harvey Willis started out into the hall, a
circumstance which gave the dazed red-faced man an opportunity to
stagger down the back stairway and out through the alley after his
companions, whom Wallingford had already followed. They were not
waiting for him, by any means, but this time were genuinely interested
in getting away from the law, each man darkly suspicious of all the
others, and Wallingford, alone, serene in mind.

In the hall, Willis, with a grin, thrust the black bag into his big
pocket, and turned his attention to the terrified landlady and his
brother officer of the wagon, who was just then mounting the stairs.

"Case of plain coke jag," he explained, and burst into the noisy room,
from which the two presently emerged with the shrieking and inebriated
man who had been brought up-stairs but a short while before.

In Wallingford's room that night, Blackie Daw was just starting for
Boston when Harvey Willis, now off duty, came up with the little black
bag, which he dropped upon the table, sitting down in one of the