Not for long would the forces arrayed against him be small in number; Gavegan, though beaten at the outset, would send out an alarm that would arouse the police of the city--and in their own degree the gangsters would do the same.

During his weeks of freedom Larry had unconsciously studied the layout of the neighborhood, his old instincts at work.

The subconscious knowledge thus gained was of instant value.

He hurried along the slippery roofs, taking care not to trip over the dividing walls, and came to the rear edge of a roof where he had marked a fire-escape with an unusually broad upper landing.

He could discern the faint outlines of this; and hanging to the gutter he dropped to the fire-escape, and a moment later he was down in the back yard; and yet two moments later he was over two fences and going through a rabbit's burrow of a passageway that went beneath a house into the street behind his own.
He did not pause to reconnoiter.