XVI

RECESSIONAL

"_Hm, hrumm!_" Thus Hickey, the inopportunely ubiquitous, lumbering hastily in from the other office and checking, in an extreme of embarrassment, in the middle of the floor.

Maitland glanced over his shoulder, and, subduing a desire to flay the man alive, released the girl's hand.

"I say, Hickey," he observed, carefully suppressing every vestige of emotion, "will you lend me a hand here? Bring a chair, please, and a glass of water."

The detective stumbled over his feet and brought the chair at the risk of his neck. Then he went away and returned with the water. In the meantime the girl, silently enough for all that her eyes were speaking, with Maitland's assistance arose and seated herself.

"You will have to stay here a few minutes," he told her, "until--er--"

"I understand," she told him in a choking tone.

Hickey awkwardly handed her the glass. She sipped mechanically.

"I have a cab below," continued Maitland. "And I'll try to arrange it so that we can get out of the building without having to force a way through the crowd."

She thanked him with a glance.

"There's th' freight elevator," suggested Hickey helpfully.

"Thank you.... Is there anything I can do for you, anything you wish?"

continued Maitland to the girl, standing between her and the detective.

She lifted her face to his and shook her head, very gently. "No," she breathed through trembling lips.

"You--you've been--" But there was a sob in her throat, and she hung her head again.

"Not a word," ordered Maitland. "Sit here for a few minutes, if you can, drink the water and--ah--fix up your hat, you know," (damn Hickey!

Why the devil did the fellow insist on hanging round so!) "and I will go and make arrangements."

"Th-thank you," whispered the small voice shakily.

Maitland hesitated a moment, then turned upon Hickey in sudden exasperation. His manner was enough; even the obtuse detective could not ignore it. Maitland had no need to speak.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said, standing his ground manfully but with a trace more of respect in his manner than had theretofore characterized it, "but there's uh gentleman--uh--your fren' Bannerman's outside 'nd wants tuh speak tuh yeh."

"Tell him to--"

"Excuse _me_. He says he's gottuh see yeh. If yeh don't come out, he'll come after yeh. I thought yeh'd ruther--"

"That's kindly thought of," Maitland relented. "I'll be there in a minute," he added meaningly.

Hickey took an impassive face to the doorway, where, whether or not with design, he stood precisely upon the threshold, filling it with his burly shoulders. Maitland bent again over the girl, and took her hand.

"Dearest," he said gently, "please don't run away from me again."

Her eyes were brimming, and he read his answer in them. Quickly--it was no time to harry her emotions further; but so much he had felt he must say--. he brushed her hand with his lips and joined Hickey. Thrusting the detective gently into the outer room, with a not unfriendly hand upon his shoulder, Maitland closed the door.

"Now, see here," he said quietly and firmly, "you must help me arrange to get this lady away without her becoming identified with the case, Hickey. I'm in a position to say a good word for you in the right place; she had positively nothing to do with Anisty," (this, so far as he could tell, was as black a lie as he had ever manufactured under the lash of necessity), "and--there's a wad in it for the boys who help me out."

"Well...." The detective shifted from one foot to the other, eying him intently. "I guess we can fix it,--freight elevator 'nd side entrance.

Yeh have the cab waitin', 'nd--"

"I'll go with the lady, you understand, and assume all responsibility.

You can come round at your convenience and arrange the details with me, at my rooms, since you will be so kind."

"I dunno." Hickey licked his lips, watching with a somber eye the preparations being made for the removal of Anisty's body. "I'd 've give a farm if I could've caught that son of a gun alive!" he added at apparent random, and vindictively. "All right. Yeh be responsible for th' lady, if she's wanted, will yeh?"

"Positively."

"I gottuh have her name 'nd add-ress."

"Is that essential?"

"Sure. Gottuh protect myself 'n case anythin' turns up. Yeh oughttuh know that."

"I--don't want it to come out," Maitland hesitated, trying to invent a plausible lie.

"Well, any one can see how you feel about it."

Maitland drew a long breath and anticipated rashly. "It's Mrs.

Maitland," he told the man with a tremor.

Hickey nodded, unimpressed. "Uh-huh. I knowed that all along," he replied. "But seein' as yeh didn't want it talked about...." And, apparently heedless of Maitland's startled and suspicious stare: "If yeh're goin' to see yer fren', yeh better get a wiggle on. He won't last long."

"Who? Bannerman? What the deuce do you mean?"

"He's the feller I plugged in the elevator, that's all. Put a hole through his lungs. They took him into an office on the twenty-first floor, right opp'site the shaft."

"But what in Heaven's name has he to do with this ghastly mess?"

Hickey turned a shrewd eye upon Maitland. "I guess he can tell yeh better'n me."

With a smothered exclamation, Maitland hurried away, still incredulous and impressed with a belief, firmer with every minute, that the wounded man had been wrongly identified.

He found him as Hickey had said he would, sobbing out his life, supine upon the couch of an office which the janitor had opened to afford him a place to die in. Maitland had to force a way through a crowded doorway, where the night-watchman was holding forth in aggrieved incoherence on the cruel treatment he had suffered at the hands of the lawbreakers. A phrase came to Maitland's ears as he shouldered through the group.

"....grabbed me an' trun me outer the cage, inter the hall, an' then the shootin' begins, an' I jumps down-stairs t' the sixteent' floor...."

Bannerman opened dull eyes as Maitland entered, and smiled faintly.