in a wholly unfamiliar voice, "Because, my good man, you are now
held up for the third time, and it would distress me to have to
kill you."

The driver uttered a loud grunt, for something sharp and hard had
been thrust deeply into that soft, sensitive region overlying his
liver, and now it was held there. It was unnecessary for Gray to
order the car stopped; its brakes squealed, it ceased its progress
as abruptly as if its front wheels had fetched up against a stone
wall.

"Hey! What the--?"

"Don't try to 'heel' me with your elbow," Gray warned, sharply.
"Now, up with 'em--you know. That's nice."

The faces of the men were close together. Gray's was blazing, the
driver's was stiff with amazement and stamped with an incredulous
grimace. Paralyzed for the moment with astonishment, he made no
resistance, not even when he felt that long muscular left arm
relax and the hand at the end of it go searching over his pockets.

Gray was grim, mocking; some vibrant, evil quality to his voice
suggested extreme malignity at full cock, like that unseen weapon
the muzzle of which was buried beneath the driver's short ribs.
"Ah! You go armed, I see. A shoulder holster, as I suspected. I
knew you had nothing on this side." Seizing his victim's
upstretched right hand with his own left, he gave it a sudden
fierce wrench that all but snapped the wrist, and at the same
instant he reached across and snatched the concealed weapon from