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Page 42
"Oh, well!" said one of the plain-clothes men in a slightly mollified
voice--"if that's the way of it--all right."
"Come along, then," brusquely insisted the impostor, leading the way
to the eastern wall of boards enclosing the back yard.
Curiously complaisant for one of his breed, the detective bent his
back and made a stirrup of his clasped hands, but no sooner had P.
Sybarite fitted foot to that same than the man started and,
straightening up abruptly, threw him flat on his back.
"Patrolman, hell! Whatcha doin' in them pants and shoes if you're a
patrol--"
"Hel-_lo_!" exclaimed the other indignantly. "Impersonatin' an
officer--eh?"
With this he dived at P. Sybarite; who, having bounced up from a
supine to a sitting position, promptly and peevishly swore, rolled to
one side (barely eluding clutches that meant to him all those
frightful and humiliating consequences that arrest means to the
average man) and scrambled to his feet.
Immediately the others closed in upon him, supremely confident of
overcoming by concerted action that smallish, pale, and terrified
body. Whereupon P. Sybarite' stepped quickly to one side and, avoiding
the rush of one, directly engaged the other. Ducking beneath a
windmill play of arms, he shot an accurate fist at this aggressor's
jaw; there was a click of teeth, the man's head snapped back, and
folding up like a tripod, he subsided at length.
Then swinging on a heel, P. Sybarite met a second onset made more
dangerous by the cooler calculations of a more sophisticated
antagonist. Nevertheless, deftly blocking a rain of blows, he closed
in as if eager to escape punishment, and planted a lifted knee in the
large of the detective's stomach so neatly that he, too, collapsed
like a punctured presidential boom and lay him down at rest.
Success so egregious momentarily stupefied even P. Sybarite. Gazing
down upon those two still shapes, so mighty and formidable when
sentient, he caught his breath in sharp amazement.
"Great Heavens! Is it possible _I_ did that?" he cried aloud--and the
next moment, spurred by alert discretion, was scaling the fence with
the readiness of an alley-cat.
Instantaneously, as he poised above the abyss of Stygian blackness on
the other side, not a little daunted by its imperturbable mystery, a
quick backward glance showed him figures moving in the basement
hallway of the gambling house; and easing over, he dropped.
Hard flags received him with native impassivity: stumbling, he lost
balance and sat down with an emphasis that drove the breath from him
in one mighty "_Ooof!_"
There was a simultaneous confusion of new, strange voices on the other
side of the fence; cries of surprise, recognition, excitement:
"Feeny, by all that's holy!"
"Mike Grogan, or I'm a liar!"
"What hit the two av urn?"
"Gawd knows!"
"Thin 'tis this waay thim murdherous divvles is b'atin' ut!"
"Gimme a back up that fince!..."
P. Sybarite picked himself up with even more alacrity that if he'd
landed in a bed of nettles, tore across that terra-incognita, found a
second fence, and was beyond it in a twinkling.
Swift as he was, however, detection attended him--a voice roaring:
"There goes wan av thim now!"
Other voices chimed in spendthrift with suggestions and advice....
Blindly clearing fence after fence without even thinking to count
them, P. Sybarite hurtled onward. Noises in the rear indicated a
determined pursuit: once a voice whooped--"_Halt or I fire!_"--and a
shot, waking echoes, sped the fugitive's heels....
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