Out of a black pile where an engine sputtered, a black figure leaped—to dash off across the soggy lawn. I cut after it, hoping that the others in the wreck were down for keeps.
I was less than fifteen feet behind the fleeing man when he cleared a hedge. I’m no sprinter, but neither was he. The wet grass made slippery going.
He stumbled while I was vaulting the hedge. When we straightened out again I was not more than ten feet behind him.
Once I clicked my gun at him, forgetting I had emptied it. Six cartridges were wrapped in a piece of paper in my vest pocket, but this was no time for loading.
I was tempted to chuck the empty gun at his head. But that was too chancy.
A building loomed ahead. My fugitive bore off to the right, to clear the corner.
To the left a heavy shotgun went off.
The running man disappeared around the house-corner.
“Sweet God!” General Pleshskev’s mellow voice complained. “That with a shotgun I should miss all of a man at the distance!”
“Go round the other way!” I yelled, plunging around the corner after my quarry.