The Suicide Squad and the Murder Bund

A keen October wind was cutting across the Drive from the Hudson when
Stephen Klaw came out of the side street. He stopped in the lee of the
corner apartment building, and lit a cigarette. He did not at once put
out the match, but held it cupped in front of his face so that his
clean-cut though rugged features were illuminated.

Almost at once, a woman came darting from the shadows of the park
across the street. She was dressed in a black rain coat, and wore no
hat. Her dark hair streamed out behind her as she ran, in zig-zag
fashion, as if wounded. And the great spreading stain of crimson upon
the black background of the raincoat, just underneath the heart,
testified to the wound.

Under her right arm she was clutching a small black leather brief
case, which seemed to be more precious to her than the life blood
which was pouring from her body.

Before she had taken half a dozen steps across the wide expanse of
Riverside Drive toward Stephen Klaw, a man's voice rose in a
triumphant shout, hoarse and vindictive: "There she is!"

The man came tearing out from the park, a little farther down the
block. At the same time, two other men broke from cover, at other
points along the Drive. They had evidently been combing the park for
her. All three of them converged upon her. They had peculiar
weapons--the stocks resembled those of Thompson sub-machine guns, but
the barrels were sawed-off so that they were only about six inches
long.

Stephen Klaw's lips pursed tightly when he saw those guns in the hands
of the three men. He spat the cigarette from his lips, and thrust his
hands down into his jacket pockets. They emerged almost at once, each
gripping an automatic.

The first of those three pursuing men dropped to one knee, and aimed
his sawed-off machine gun, while the other two raised their weapons to
their shoulders to fire as they ran. All three muzzles were
concentrated upon the back of the staggering woman. Either they had
not seen the slim, almost boyish figure of Stephen Klaw, or else they
did not connect him with their quarry.

Klaw's eyes were cold and hard as he fired both automatics from the
hip. The men on the extreme right and left of the running woman fell
as those two automatics began their spiteful, deadly barking. They
never even fired their weapons.

But the third, directly behind the woman, was shielded from Klaw by
her staggering body.

The fellow saw his advantage at once, and dropped flat on the ground,
raising his sawed-off machine gun and pulling the trip at the same
time. A burst of scattering lead belched from the mouth of the vicious
weapon, spreading over a radius of twenty feet, something like the
buckshot from a small gauge shotgun.