Four-eyes, take that gun off her!’ the constable ordered.
Deadeye moved directly towards Death, reciting in a cajoling voice: ‘Return to me, I beg you, cruel one, a youthful lover’s sacred pledge.’
She turned towards the Jack. ‘Don’t come any closer. Or I’ll kill you.’
But the slender hands clutching the revolver were shaking.
‘Shoot him! Don’t b-be afraid!’ Erast Petrovich shouted desperately, struggling to break loose.
But Boxman’s mighty hands held him in a vice-like grip, and the Ghoul and the Prince still kept hold of their prisoner.
‘Stop, you damned blockhead!’ the superintendent howled. ‘She’ll fire! You’ll get us all killed!’
The Jack’s thin lips stretched out into a smile. ‘Blockhead yourself! Mademoiselle won’t fire, she’s too concerned for the handsome man with the dark hair. That, my dear copper, is called love.’
He suddenly took two long, rapid strides, grabbed the Colt out of Death’s hands and flung it as far away as he could, to the entrance of the passage, then said calmly: ‘And now you can finish off Mr Know-all.’
‘What with, our teeth?’ hissed Boxman, crimson from the strain. ‘He’s a strong devil, we can barely hold him.’
‘Well then,’ Deadeye sighed, ‘it is the duty of the intelligentsia to help the people. Now, servant of law and order, move aside a little, if you please.’
The constable shifted over as far as he could and the Jack raised his knife, preparing to throw. Now the steel lightning would flash and that would be end of the American engineer Erast Petrovich Nameless.
The Colt was lying on the floor only two steps away from the passage, its burnished steel glittering as if it was winking at Senka: Well, Speedy, how about it?
Ah, to hell with it, he could only die once, it had to happen some time!
Senka dashed to the revolver, grabbed it and yelled: ‘Stop, Deadeye! I’ll take your life!’
Deadeye swung round and his sparse eyebrows inched up in surprise.
‘Bah, the seventh coming. That Speedy again. Why have you come back, you stupid little goose?’
‘Hey, kid!’ shouted the superintendent, pressing himself back against the wall. ‘Don’t even think about it! You don’t know! You can’t shoot in here! The whole place will collapse. We’ll be buried alive.’
‘L-Landslide!’ Erast Petrovich suddenly shouted out at the top of his voice.
Instantly there was a low rumble and the heap of earth and stone blocking off the doorway shuddered and collapsed. The superintendent screamed desperately as a solid, stocky figure dressed in black forced its way out through the rubble. It came tumbling out into the middle of the chamber like a rubber ball, and threw itself at the Jack, screeching like a warrior.
Masa!
Now that was a real miracle!
Erast Petrovich immediately took advantage of his enemies’ confusion: the Prince went flying off in one direction, the Ghoul in the other. But the engineer still couldn’t break the grip of Boxman’s huge hands and, after a brief struggle, they collapsed on the floor, with the constable on top, pinning Mr Nameless down and still holding on tight to his wrists. The Ghoul and the Prince didn’t help Boxman this time – the two bandits’ hate was too strong. They grabbed each other and started rolling across the floor.
Deadeye flung a knife at Masa, but the Japanese squatted down in good time, and he dodged the second and third knives just as easily. But the Jack didn’t stop once he had exhausted the arsenal in his sleeve. He threw back the skirt of his long frock coat, and Senka saw a wooden cane attached to the belt of his trousers.
Senka remembered what Deadeye had in that cane – a big, long pen that was called a ‘foil’. And he hadn’t forgotten how smartly the Jack handled that terrible shiv either.
Deadeye put his left hand behind his back, moved one foot out in front and started edging forward, tracing out glittering circles with his whistling blade. Masa backed away. What else could he do, with only his bare hands!
‘I’ll fire! I’ll fire right now!’ Senka shouted, but no one even looked round.
So there he was, standing like a fool with a loaded revolver, and no one giving a rotten damn about him; everybody was too busy with their own business: Boxman was sitting on the engineer and trying to butt him in the face with his forehead; the Prince and the Ghoul were growling and screeching like two crazy dogs; Deadeye was driving Masa into a corner; Death was trying to drag the constable off Erast Petrovich (but what could she do