Barloff was rubbing his hands together unctuously once more, as he hurried back now to the desk. The desk was close to the already splintered door that led to the front of the house, and Barloff, catching up the hatchet in one hand, pulled the portable telephone instrument toward him with the other, and snatched the receiver from its hook.
“The police—quick—quick!” he called into the transmitter, his voice pitched in a well-simulated scream of terror, and brought the hatchet down with a crash on the splintered panels.
Billy Kane made no movement save that his lips twitched a little. The low, cunning trickery of the man produced a sort of nauseating disgust, and, too, a sort of merciless anger; but, given enough rope now, Barloff was in a fair way to hang himself, and it would afford him, Billy Kane, a very genuine pleasure to adjust, as he now proposed to do, the noose that would accomplish that hanging!
Barloff was still raining his hatchet blows on the door; and then suddenly, evidently having got his connection, he was screaming again, between blows, into the mouthpiece of the telephone:
“Is that the police?——Yes, yes!——Quick——This is Ivan Barloff——Barloff, Barloff, Barloff——yes, Barloff——Quick——Help!——For God’s sake, help!——It is the Wop!——Do you hear?——The Wop!”
Barloff slammed the receiver back on the hook, and flung the hatchet down on the floor. It was quiet in the room now except that the old man was talking again to himself, in a sort of triumphant glee:
“Ha, ha—got to escape from the Wop now—got to escape——yes, yes, Barloff, you have done well, very well—but you must hurry now—yes, hurry.”
Billy Kane drew silently back into the darkness at the far side of the kitchen. There was still a little more rope left to give Barloff for Barloff’s undoing! He, Billy Kane, had no intention of interfering with the hypocritical old scoundrel’s self-styled escape, nor of preventing Barloff now from rushing, for instance, to the police to amplify his tale; but Barloff, to “escape” and carry out his ruse successfully, could not rush out through the door supposed to be barred by the Wop and so reach the street that way! Barloff then, if Barloff were logical, had a choice of the kitchen and back door, or the window.