"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.
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