"Exactly."
"But he's such a gentle old man. Surely they wouldn't murder him."
Jaro said nothing. He sat facing the entrance. From time to time he
flicked his eyes to the girl's face but for the most part, he watched
the doorway like a cat at a mouse hole. For some minutes past he had
been unobtrusively studying a plump, bald-headed man who had entered
and was loitering about the door. The plump man's hand disappeared
inside the breast of his gray coat. When it reappeared there was the
glint of metal in his fist.
Without a word of warning, Jaro seized the edge of the table, upended
it with a crash of glass. In the same movement, he slipped to the
floor, using the table as a shield. Joan was left sitting in her chair,
a foolish expression on her face.
"For heaven's sake," she hissed, "get up! Everybody's staring at us."
Jaro shifted the slug gun to his left hand, grabbed the girl by one
shapely ankle, yanked her to the floor.
"_Oof!_" she gulped as she lit with a solid smack. Her hat slid to the
back of her head.
"Stay down!" said Jaro impassively.
The plump man in the gray suit was circling the table warily. Jaro took
a pot shot at him over the top of the table. The plump man spun around
as if jerked by an unseen hand. The occupants of the other tables
simultaneously dived for the door which was at least ten feet too
narrow to accommodate them all. The plump man was sitting on the floor,
his back to the wall, a surprised expression on his face. His poisoned
dart gun lay a dozen feet away.
"Come on," said Jaro yanking the girl to her feet as abruptly as he had
tumbled her down. "This joint should have a back exit."
Joan clapped her hand to her hat as they dashed around the bar and
through a door. They came out into a narrow, devious alley which
paralleled the main passage.
"What happened?" Joan gasped when she caught her breath.
Jaro slipped the slug gun back in its holster. "Give me a slug gun any
day. It's got a kick like a rocket tube. When you hit a man with it, he
says down. Knocked that gunman right off his feet. Did you see him?"
"No," said Joan bitterly. "I'm not accustomed to being thumped around
like a sack of flour. I didn't see anything, after bouncing off the
floor, but stars."
"One of Peet's men tailed me into the grog shop," he explained, "and
took a shot at us."
"Us?" she gulped. "But why?"
"We know too much."
They had emerged into a well-lit, well-traveled passage. Jaro looked at
the girl seriously, his light blue eyes unreadable. "What can I do with
you?"
"Must you do anything? I'm really a very frail girl. You play too
rough."
He ignored the interruption. "You'd better come to my room." He took
her arm, started off toward the native quarter.
"Please, Mr. Moynahan," she protested trotting along beside him.
"Now, listen," said Jaro patiently. "I didn't kill that gunman. When he
lets Peet know that we were together your life won't be worth anymore
than Karfial Hodes'."
"Oh," said Miss Webb. Then increasing her pace she repeated with rising
inflection: "Oh! Well let's not loiter along like this. Let's get
there!"