Like a stricken match, the hat burst into flame. It blazed brilliantly, gave off a tremendous cloud of billious yellow smoke.
Nace flung the headgear at Canadan. The man ducked. Nace twisted sidewise.
He had clamped one hand tightly over his mouth and nostrils. His eyes were closed.
He found a window. With his free fist, he beat madly against it. The glass was the non-shattering type. It gave like cardboard under the furiously-driven blows. When he had a sufficient aperture, he thrust out his head.
Even then, Nace did not breathe in air until his lungs were throbbing. He drew in tentatively, made a face, began to cough violently. He hung in the window, limp, features distorted, until the car reached the other tower.
For a time, he was entirely unconscious.
The jar as the car arrived at the landing stage aroused him. He stumbled to the mechanism, got it stopped before the car had rounded the horseshoe turn-track and started back. He gained the door, stumbled out on the platform, then wheeled dizzily and stared.
Everyone in the car was unconscious.
It required ten minutes to get police on the spot, turn Shack, Tubby and Canadan over to them, together with the sack containing, at a conservative estimate, some millions in gems.
Nace got a receipt for the stones. Then he set about reviving Julia and the girl detective from the orange-drink stand. That took another five minutes.
The girl in orange took her head in both hands and rocked. “Do I feel awful! What’d you do, anyway?”
“My hat was painted inside with a chemical mixture which, when burned, produces a gas that’ll knock you instantly,” Nace explained. “The hat itself is whitened with a highly inflammable paint, a mixture of celluloid and some other stuff.” He coughed. “I got a dose of the gas myself.”
The orange-drink girl scowled. “You might have told me in advance what was coming off!”
Red-headed Julia laughed spitefully. “After the way you clowned around, you should squawk, honey!”