The commissioner pushed in, however, followed closely by both of us, prepared for an on-rush or a hand-to-hand struggle with anything, man or beast.

A quick succession of shots greeted us.  I do not recall feeling the slightest sensation of pain, but with a sickening dizziness in the head I can just vaguely remember that I sank down on the oil and grease of the floor.  I did not fall.  It seemed as if I had time to catch myself and save, perhaps, a fractured skull.  But then it was all blank.

It seemed an age, though it could not have been more than ten minutes later when I came to.  I felt an awful, choking sensation in my throat which was dry and parched.  My lungs seemed to rasp my very ribs, as I struggled for breath.  Garrick was bending anxiously over me, himself pale and gasping yet.  The air was reeking with a smell that I did not understand.

“Thank heaven, you’re all right,” he exclaimed, with much relief, as he helped me struggle up on my feet.  My head was still in a whirl as he assisted me over to a cushioned seat in one of the automobiles standing there.  “Now I’ll go back to Dillon,” he added, out of breath from the superhuman efforts he was putting forth both for us and to keep himself together.  “Wh—­what’s the matter?  What happened?” I gasped, gripping the back of the cushion to steady myself.  “Am I wounded?  Where was I hit?  I—­I don’t feel anything—­but, oh, my head and throat!”

I glanced over at Dillon.  He was pale and white as a ghost, but I could see that he was breathing, though with difficulty.  In the glare of the headlight of a car which Garrick had turned on him, he looked ghastly.  I looked again to discover traces of blood.  But there was none anywhere.

“We were all put out of business,” muttered Garrick, as he worked over Dillon.  Dillon opened his eyes blankly at last, then struggled up to his feet.  “You got it worst, commissioner,” remarked Garrick to him.  “You were closest.”

“Got what?” he sputtered, “Was closest to what?”

We were all still choking over the peculiar odor in the fetid air about us.

“The bulletless gun,” replied Garrick.

Dillon looked at him a moment incredulously, in spite even of his trying physical condition.

“It is a German invention,” Garrick went on to explain, clearing his throat, “and shoots, instead of bullets, a stupefying gas which temporarily blinds and chokes its victims.  The fellow who was in here didn’t shoot bullets at us.  He evidently didn’t care about adding any more crimes to his list just now.  Perhaps he thought that if he killed any of us there would be too much of a row.  I’m glad it was as it was, anyway.  He got us all, this way, before we knew it.  Perhaps that was the reason he used the gun, for if he had shot one of us with a pistol I had my own automatic ready myself to blaze away.  This way he got me, too.

“A stupefying gun!” repeated Dillon.  “I should say so.  I don’t know what happened—­yet,” he added, blinking.