CRASH!
A terrific blow, as of from a battering ram, shook and shivered the strong oak door. But door and bolt still held. Carlson knew from the impact of the blow that some ponderous solid object had been driven against the door. And he know also that a few more such blows would shatter it, leaving only the bed and an overturned chiffonier and Tony's body as a barricade.
So he quickly began dragging more chairs, tables and what not into the small dressing-room.
CRASH! The door fell inward against the head of the massive bed. Carlson dragged a davenport into the little room, and then closed its door, locking and bolting it.
CRASH!
The devastating sound that followed told that the heavy overhanging canopy of the bed had fallen inward. Carlson kept steadily working away barricading the second door.
"Thank God this door opens outward!" he said to Ina. She was still at her post at the telephone.
"Hello!" she said calmly. "They have just smashed in the outer door and are climbing in over the ruins of the bed and furniture. We have retreated into a smaller room, and the doctor is piling furniture against it—" She looked at Carlson.
"The police want to know how long we can hold out!"
"Perhaps another five minutes."
"Five minutes more—what? . . . . O, I hope so!"
CRASH! This time on the inner door. It held perfectly!
"They are attacking our inner door, Inspector—you heard it?"
CRASH! A panel cracked, all the way down.
CRASH! The panel flew in splinters. One splinter struck the girl in the face, making a small wound on the forehead. and blood trickled down into her eyes, but she did nothing more than to wipe it off with the back of her right hand.
Carlson readjusted the shifting barricade, and glanced at Ina.
"You are hurt!"
"Its nothing."
"Into the bathroom, quickly!"
CRASH! Another panel cracked! She got up calmly, and wiped the blood out of her eyes again with the hankerchief Carlson pressed against her face: then, his arm around her, she walked into the bathroom.
Carlson forced Ina into a chair and knelt beside her, indifferent to everything now but the bleeding cut on her face.
"Let me look at it!"
"It's nothing at all, I tell you! Go back and attend to the door. We must barricade ourselves in here in another minute."
CRASH! The center of the door fell inward against the barricade. As Carlson ran to pick up a heavy chair for the bathroom defense, a hand and pistol came through the breach in the door and a shot rang out. He felt a stinging pain in his side, but kept on with his work. Before he realized it, Ina was in the room again, dragging another chair into the bathroom.
The barricade crumbled still more, and another shot was aimed at Carlson, but did not hit him. Ina deliberately crossed the little room to the telephone and turned off the light.
"They won't shoot me—not yet, anyway," she said.
The barricade fell to pieces. There was not a moment to lose. Carlson and Ina rushed into the bathroom and locked and bolted the door and began stacking the chairs and tables and one small chiffonier against the door.
Carlson felt blood soaking his clothing. He and Ina crouched together in one corner. He held Tony’s pistol in his right hand, and both of Ina‘s hands in his left.
"Listen, Ina! When they force this door, I will try to pick them off one by one. If I fall, be ready to snatch the pistol and shoot carefully.
