Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1909-10-16
CHAPTER xv-continued.

Maitland, yielding the initiative to
the others superior generalship, stood
sentinel, revolver in hand, until the
detective returned, overheated and
sweating, from his tour, to report
.'nothin' doin',' with characteristic
brevity. He had the same report to
make on both the twentieth and TWEEN
ty-first floors, where the same pro-
cedure was observed; but as the latter
was reached unexpected and very well
come reinforcements were gained by
the arrival of a third car, containing
three patrolmen and one roundsman.
Yet numbers created delay; Hickey
was seized and compelled to pant ex-
plantations, to his supreme disgust.
And, suddenly impatient beyond en-
durance, Maitland left them and alone
sprang up the stairs
That this was simple foolhardiness
may be granted without dispute. But
it must be borne in mind that he was
very young and ardent, very greatly
perturbed on behalf of an actor in
the tragedy in whom the police, to
their then knowledge, had no interest
whatsoever. And if in the heat of
chase he had for an instant forgotten
her, now he remembered; and at once
the capture of Anisty was relegated
to the status of a matter of secondary
Importance. The real matter at stake
was the safety of the girl whom
Anisty, by exercise of an internal in
genuity that passed Maitland's COM
prehension, had managed to spirit into
this place of death and darkness and
whispering halls. Where she might
be, in what degree of suffering and
!. L. sl1,,a s.0y,e
that sent Inn in search of her without
a thought of personal peril, but with a
sick heart and overwhelmed with a
sitting sense of anxiety.
More active than the paunch- bur-
dened detective, he had sprinted down
and back through the hallway of the
twenty-second floor, without discover
ing anything, ere the police contingent
had reached an agreement and the
stairhead.
There remained two more floors, two
final flights. A little hopelessly he
swung up the first. And as he did so
the blackness above him was riven by
a tongue of fire, and a bullet, singing
past his head. fattened itself with a
vicious spat against the marble dado
of the walls. Instinctively he pulled
up, finger closing upon the trigger of
his revolver; flash and report fol-
lowed the motion, and a panel of
ribbed glass in a door overhead was
splintered and fell in clashing frag-
ments, all but drowning the sound OF
feet in fight upon the upper staircase.
A clamor of caution, warning, en-
couragement, and advice broke out
from the police below. But Maitland
hardly heard. Already he was again
in pursuit, taking the steps two at a
leap. With a hand upon the newell
post he swung round on the twenty
third floor, and hurled himself toward
the foot of the last flight. A crash
like a rifie-shot rang out above, and
for second he fancied that Anisty
had fired again and with a heavier
weapon But Immediately he realized
that the noise had been only the slam
ming of the door at the head of the
stairs-the door whose glazed panel
doomed above him, shedding a diffused
light to guide his footsteps, its opaies
cent surface lettered with the name OF
HENRY NJ. BANNERMAN.
Attorney & Counselor-at-Law,
the door or the office whose threshold
he had so often crossed to meet a
friend and adviser. 1t was with a
shock that he comprehended this. a
thrill of wonder. He had all but for
gotten that Bannerman owned an Of
fee in the building. in the rush, the