men questioned one another. Then the door was kicked open, and there
was a long silence, broken sharply by the click of a revolver.

"Maybe he's in there," said a bass voice. The men stamped across the
floor leading into the dark room in which he lay, and halted at the
entrance. They did not stand there over a moment before they turned
and moved away again; but to Raegen, lying with blood-vessels choked,
and with his hand pressed across his mouth, it seemed as if they had
been contemplating and enjoying his agony for over an hour. "I was in
this place not more than twelve hours ago," said one of them easily.
"I come in to take a couple out for fighting. They were yelling
'murder' and 'police,' and breaking things; but they went quiet
enough. The man is a stevedore, I guess, and him and his wife used to
get drunk regular and carry on up here every night or so. They got
thirty days on the Island."

"Who's taking care of the rooms?" asked the bass voice. The first
voice said he guessed "no one was," and added: "There ain't much to
take care of, that I can see." "That's so," assented the bass voice.
"Well," he went on briskly, "he's not here; but he's in the building,
sure, for he put back when he seen me coming over the roof. And he
didn't pass me, neither, I know that, anyway," protested the bass
voice. Then the bass voice said that he must have slipped into the
flat below, and added something that Raegen could not hear distinctly,
about Schaffer on the roof, and their having him safe enough, as that
red-headed cop from the Eighteenth Precinct was watching on the
street. They closed the door behind them, and their footsteps
clattered down the stairs, leaving the big house silent and apparently
deserted. Young Raegen raised his head, and let his breath escape with
a great gasp of relief, as when he had been a long time under water,