I got the gun into my fingers. My eyes were back into focus. There had been two men. The second one had seen Ned go into action with the billy and he had also seen me get possession of the gun. He changed his mind and headed for the rear exit, fast. Ned Kenro vaulted over the bar and helped me to my feet.
"You hurt, Luke?" His round face beamed with concern.
"Don't mention it. Glad to do the same for a friend any day." He hesitated, his delicacy preventing him from intruding into what might be a private fight. "But would you mind telling me what this is all about? Watch it, Luke!" Ned's voice grew tight with alarm.
I turned. Long Jaw wasn't coming toward me. He was heading out the front door and he was in a hurry. I could have shot him, and perhaps I should have smoked him, but I hate to shoot a running man. I followed him outside just in time to see him jump into a car and roar away.
Perhaps I should have gone back into the saloon and kicked the truth out of the third man, but all I could think of at that moment was that Tom had to know about this. Yelling at Ned to take care of the third man, I jumped into my own car and burned rubber getting out to the edge of town where the lab was located. A car was parked in the driveway and a man was coming out the door. Picking up Long Jaw's gun from the seat beside me, I braked to a stop.
"Who are you and what the hell--" I got this far before I recognized him. Samuel Herker, president of the company that had been organized to develop Tom's inventions commercially. He had gotten rich off of Tom's discoveries, but his main ambition in life was to get richer. "Sorry, Mr. Herker," I called out.
He came across the drive to me. He was hot. "I want to tell you one thing, Shaw!" His voice grated like a dull file being drawn across tough metal. "Either this criminal expenditure of company funds comes to a stop or I'm going into court and ask for the appointment of a referee to conserve the assets of the company, then I'm going to ask for a lunacy hearing to determine if Calhoun is mentally fit to order equipment on company credit without my prior authorization!"
His feet kicked gravel as he stalked across the drive to his own car. The door slammed. The rear wheels spun as he jammed the accelerator to the floorboard. I headed into the lab.