Down below, inside a doorway upon the other side of the street, Sergeant Murtha of the Detective Bureau waited for Doc Barrows to come out and be arrested again. Murtha had known Doc for fifteen years as a harmless old nut who had rarely succeeded in cheating anybody, but who was regarded as generally undesirable by the authorities and sent away every few years in order to keep him out of mischief. There was no danger that the public would accept Doc's version of the nature or value of his securities, but there was always the chance that some of his worthless bonds—those bastard offsprings of his cracked old brain—would find their way into less honest but saner hands. So Doc rattled about from penitentiary to prison and from prison to madhouse and out again, constantly taking appeals and securing writs of habeas corpus, and feeling mildly resentful, but not particularly so, that people should be so interfering with his business. Now as from force of long habit he peered out of the doorway before making his exit; he looked like one of the John Sargent's prophets gone a little madder than usual—a Jeremiah or a Habakkuk.
"Hello, Doc!" called Murtha in hearty, friendly tones. "Hie spy! Come on out!"
"Oh, how d'ye do, captain!" responded Doc. "How are you? I was just interviewing my solicitor."
"Sorry," said Murtha. "The inspector wants to see you."
Doc flinched.
"But they've just let me go!" he protested faintly.
"It's one of those old indictments—Chicago Water Front or something. Anyhow—Here! Hold on to yourself!"
He threw his arms around the old man, who seemed on the point of falling.
"Oh, captain! That's all over! I served time for that out in Illinois!" For some strange reason all the insanity had gone out of his bearing.