THE BRASS BOWL
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.
"Ah-h, Maitland," he gasped; "thought you'd … come."
Racked with sorrow, nothing guessing of the career that had brought the lawyer to this pass, Maitland slipped into a chair by the head of the couch and closed his hand over Bannerman's chubby, icy fingers.
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