CHAPTER XV.

THE FIGHT IN THE DARK

For a moment they stood thus, neither man moving, then Jake put up his hands slowly.

“Got a little gun, have ye?” he growled. “You’re not going to hurt a poor old man, Mr. Holt?”

“Come forward steadily,” said Larry, “and don’t try any tricks or you’ll be sorry for yourself.”

“Sorry enough now, Mr. Holt,” grumbled the man.

It was wonderful to watch him. He moved as lightly as a girl and his extraordinary sixth sense enabled him to avoid every obstacle which stood in his way.

Larry was in a dilemma. The man’s advance toward him brought the half-fainting woman on the bed in the line of fire. But for that he undoubtedly intended to shoot if the man showed fight, but it was impossible to fire now, even to save his life, without risking the life of Fanny Weldon. And yet it would have been unfair and asking the impossible to expect the man to advance by any other way, the furniture in the room being disposed as it was. But the real danger to Larry he never saw until it was upon him.

The big man came forward, his hands in the air, and one of them touched awkwardly the hanging electric light. And then before Larry knew or guessed what was happening, the big man’s hand closed round the bulb, there was a deafening explosion as it burst under the pressure, and the room was in darkness.

To fire now would have been madness, and Larry put one foot back and braced himself to meet the shock of the body which he knew was hurtling toward him. And then he found himself in the hands of Blind Jake. Diana had not exaggerated his strength. It was terrific, and though Larry was a strong man he felt himself going under. What might have been the result of that struggle, Larry Holt has never speculated upon in cold blood. But there came an interruption, the sound of an opening door on the landing above and a man’s voice, and then Blind Jake lifted the detective as though he had been a bundle of rags, and flung him to the other end of the room, where he lay gasping and breathless.

A second later the door had opened and Blind Jake was going down the carpeted stairs faster than any man with eyesight would have dared.

Larry struggled to his feet, took his flash lamp from the floor and found his revolver where it had dropped. He picked it up and, running to the window, flung it open and peered out. But Blind Jake had already gone round the corner.

Somebody brought another bulb, and Larry went to look after the girl. She was still unconscious, the purple marks about her throat testifying to the character of Blind Jake’s grip.

“You had better get a doctor,” he said to the landlady, who was the third person in the room, and she looked at him with suspicion and distrust.

“What were you doing in this room?” she asked accusingly. “I am going to send for a policeman.”

“Send for two,” said Larry, “and get a doctor.”

Fortunately the police station was near at hand, and the divisional surgeon had been called to examine a doubtful case of drunkenness, and he was on the spot within a few minutes.

By this time the woman had come back to life, but had subsided into a condition of hysteria painful to witness.

“You had better get her into an infirmary or a hospital, I think, doctor,” said Holt, and the surgeon agreed.

He was looking at the marks about her throat with a puzzled expression.

“No man could have done this,” he said, “he must have used an instrument of some kind.”

Larry laughed. It was a very rueful laugh.

“If you think that, doctor,” he said, “you’d better have a look at my throat,” and he showed the red weal where Blind Jake’s thumb and finger had gripped.

“Do you mean to say that he did that to you?” asked the doctor incredulously.

“I do not mean to say very much about it,” said Larry, “because it is not an adventure of which I am inordinately proud, but he picked me up like a tennis ball and chucked me amongst the crockery-ware under the window.”

The doctor whistled. By this time the landlady had been assured of Larry’s _bona fides_ and was at once apologetic and tearful at the indignity which had been offered to her house by the presence, even for one night, of a detective officer.

Larry went out into the street to breathe the night air. He was dizzy and shaky and sore. The fact that he, Larry Holt, who had pretensions to winning the middle-weight amateur championship, had been treated like a punch-ball did not distress him. What made him grave was the knowledge that there was loose in the world, and in the city of London, a man of the criminal classes more dangerous than a tiger, with the strength of a bear and an intelligence which was little better than a monkey’s.

“And that exhausts the whole Zoölogical Gardens,” said Larry after he had enumerated the unpleasant qualities of his assailant.

Half an hour afterwards every police station received an all-stations message, and the hunt for Blind Jake had begun.

Larry reached his flat at three o’clock, and Sunny was dozing peacefully in a chair. He aroused his servant with a gentle tap.

“Sunny,” said he, “I have had the experience of a lifetime.”

“I suppose you have, sir,” said Sunny, blinking himself awake. “Will you have some coffee, too, sir?”

Larry was thinking, thinking, thinking. He stood with his hands in his pockets and his legs wide apart, gazing down at the hearthrug.

“He took me by the scruff of the neck, Sunny,” he said softly, “and he threw me to the other side of the room.”

“He would, sir,” said Sunny. “What time would you like your tea in the morning?”

Weary and sick as he was, Larry had to laugh.

“If I were brought home with my neck broken, Sunny,” he demanded irritably, “what would you do?”

“I should stop the morning papers, sir,” said Sunny without hesitation. “I think I should be doing right, sir.”

“Haven’t you got a heart?” snarled Larry.

“No, sir,” was the surprising reply. “The doctor says it’s indigestion, sir.”

Larry made a gesture of despair, kicked off his boots, slipped off his coat and vest, followed that with his collar and tie, and loosening his braces, he lay down on the bed and pulled the eiderdown over him. He did this partly because he was very tired and partly because he knew that it would annoy Sunny.