Kilgore heard him coming, and again fled through the hall and up another
flight of stairs.
"You'd better throw up your hands," roared Nick, as he followed.
The answer came back with a yell of defiance:
"Not on your life!"
"You're a lost dog," cried Nick, hoping to keep him replying.
"You'll not get me alive!"
"Then I'll get you dead!" cried Nick, as he mounted the stairs.
"You haven't got me yet!"
"Next door to it, my man."
This brought no answer.
In a moment Nick reached the second hall, where he briefly paused to
listen. Save the rain beating on the roof of the house, only one sound
reached his strained ears. It was like that of some one hammering
against the side of the house with some heavy object. For a moment the
detective was puzzled. He could not fathom the meaning of such a sound.
Then a gust of damp night air rushed through the hall and swept Nick's
cheek.
"Ah! an open window!" he muttered. "That's easily located."
He groped his way into one of the rear chambers. There the night air was
sweeping in through an open window, to the sill of which Nick quickly
sprang.
Now the noise he had heard was instantly explained.
Cornered like a rat, yet viciously resolute to the last, Kilgore had, in
order to make his escape, resorted to a means from which a less cool and
nervy scoundrel would have shrunk on such a night as that.
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