“Commandant, Commandant, we have him, we have him!”
Gallagher rushed to the stairway. He found Mulholland grasping the wall with one hand, with his cap in the other hand, panting, with perspiration rolling down his cheeks in drops.
“It was Katie Fox,” he gasped. “She came runnin’ down Mount William Road: Charlie Carrol headed her off. She tole him Gypo was up in her room, in bed. No. 61 Mount William Crescent. Captain Burton has got the house surrounded. He sent me up for orders.”
“Katie Fox?” said Gallagher. “I thought she was—”
“She’s mad with dope.”
“I see. Double back and tell Burton I’ll be down immediately. Don’t move till I arrive.”
“All right, Commandant.”
Mulholland raced up the stairs again. Gallagher rushed back to the witnesses’ room. Mary McPhillip had fallen into a doze. He roused her.
“Come on, Mary,” he whispered. “We are going now. We found him.”
“Who? What? Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Who did you find?”
“The informer. Gypo Nolan. We found him at 61 Mount William Crescent. I am going there now. Come along. Then I’ll leave you home.”
She was waking up gradually, frightened and rubbing her eyes. Gallagher fidgeted excitedly, trying to get her to her feet.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“A quarter to six.”
“Heavens above! Mother will be gone to Mass before I get home.”
“What does it matter?”
“Of course it matters. I was to have gone with her this morning. For Frankie.”
“Where does she go to Mass?”
“Mount William Crescent.”
“Well, we’re going there, too. You can go into the chapel and meet her there.”
“Why? What’s at Mount William Crescent?”
She was fully awake now and had got to her feet, wild eyed.
Gallagher got angry and swore. He stamped his feet.
“Come on quickly. I have no time. I tell you the informer has been found. He is at Mount William Crescent. I’m going down there. Come along.”
“You’re going to murder him,” she gasped, with her bosom heaving.
“Murder be damned!” cried Gallagher. “We’re going to wipe him out.”
“You’re a beast. You’re not going to murder him, not while I can prevent it.”
She rushed from the room. With a fierce oath he rushed after her. He caught her at the foot of the stairs. The sentries rushed up. She kept screaming and striking out with her clawing hands.
“Keep her here,” he hissed. “Don’t let her out on any account for an hour. Then let her off and get home. Goodbye.” He looked fiercely into Mary’s eyes. His face was ashen with rage. “We spare neither man nor woman. Remember that.”
Then he rushed up the stairs.
“Murderer, murderer,” she cried after him, until they stuffed her mouth.
XVIII
Shapeless figures dancing on tremendous stilts, on the brink of an abyss, to the sound of rocks being tumbled about below, in the darkness, everything immense and dark and resounding, everything without shape or meaning, gloom and preponderance, yawning, yawning abysses full of frozen fog, cliffs gliding away when touched, leaving no foundation, an endless wandering through space, through screeching winds and … crash.
Gypo awoke with a snort, perspiring with his nightmare, terrified.
The old woman had at last awakened him by squeezing his nostrils between her fingers. He sat up, looked about him and saw her. He saw her weird and pale, with her white hair streaming. He was going to strike her in terror, thinking her an ogre from his dreams, when she spoke.
“They’re after ye,” she hissed. “They’re after ye. They’re on the stairs.”
He listened. There was nothing. Not a sound. What? Just a whistle of the wind on the roof. Ha! Something creaked. Was it the bed? No. Trup, trip, r-r-rip. Somebody had slipped on the roof.
Gypo bounded from the bed to the floor in one leap. He stood motionless, crouching forward, panting, with dilated nostrils. A sound came on the stairs outside the door. Somebody on the stairs said: “Hist!” Then utter silence. Gypo stood transfixed, still wet with the perspiration of his nightmare.
Then he moved noiselessly to the fireplace and picked up the tongs. It slipped from his fingers as he rose and rattled to the stone hearth. He whirled about to the door with an oath. Simultaneously the door was flung wide with a bang. Three flashes of light came before his eyes from the doorway. As he rushed headlong towards them there was a deafening roar. Three men had fired together at him. Then there was chaos.
As he dashed across the floor to the landing, he felt a sting like frostbite in his thigh. Then he saw their terror-stricken, mad faces. He recognized two of them, Mulholland and Hackett. The third man was Curley. When he closed with them and felt his giant hands on the soft warm flesh of their bodies he breathed a sigh of satisfaction.
Somebody fired again, unintentionally, in the struggling mass on the landing. It must have been Curley. For his thin voice screamed querulously after the explosion, “God have mercy on my soul!” Gypo smelt burning under his armpit as his head was bent down to mobilize his spine strength.
Then the banister gave way with a crash of breaking wood. The four men went down, without a cry. Their fists thudded with dull sounds as they struck blindly at one another in the dark.
They fell on the next landing. Gypo and Mulholland were on top. Mulholland had his right knee on Curley’s back. He was cool with the mania of death-terror. He bared his teeth and raised his pistol to fire into Gypo’s open mouth. But Gypo rammed him with his monstrous head.
Mulholland was hurled backwards like a gymnast, head over heels, heels over head. He brought up on a black sheepskin carpet outside a tenement door in the far corner. He lay with his knees to his chin, perfectly quiet. The pistol shot splashed through the whitewashed woodwork of the ceiling. The pistol jingled to the floor.
Gypo scraped around on his hands and knees in the darkness. He groped for the two men who lay beneath him. He felt
