"I said—" stammered the plain-clothes man, purple with confusion.
"No matter. I didn't leave the Primordial until a quarter to eleven. But all this aside, as I understand it, you are asserting that, having given you all this trouble to-day, and knowing that you were after me, I deliberately hopped into a cab fifteen minutes ago, came up Fifth Avenue at such breakneck speed that this officer thought it was a runaway, and finally jumped out and ran up-stairs here to fire a revolver three times, for no purpose whatsoever beyond bringing you gentlemen about my ears?"
Hickey's jaw sagged. The cabby ostentatiously covered his mouth with a huge red paw and made choking noises.
"Pass it up, sarge, pass it up," he whispered hoarsely.
"Shut yer trap," snapped the detective. "I know what I'm doin'. This crook's clever all right, but I got the kibosh on him this time. Lemme alone." He squared his shoulders, blustering to save his face. "I don't know why yeh done it——"
"Then I'll tell you," Maitland cut in crisply. "If you'll be good enough to listen." And concisely narrated the events of the past twenty-four hours, beginning at the moment when he had discovered Anisty in Maitland Manor. Save that he substituted himself for the man who had escaped from Higgins and eliminated all mention of the grey girl, his statement was exact and convincing. As he came down to the moment when he had called up from the Bartholdi and heard mysterious sounds in his flat, substantiating his story by indicating the receiver that dangled useless from the telephone, even Hickey was staggered.
But not beaten. When Maitland ceased speaking the detective smiled superiority to such invention.
"Very pretty," he conceded. "Yeh c'n tell it all to the magistrate to-morrow morning. Meantime yeh'll have time to think up a yarn explainin' how it come that a crook like Anisty made three attempts in one day to steal some jewels, 'nd didn't get 'em. Where were they all this time?"
"In safe-keeping," Maitland lied manfully, with a furtive glance toward the alcove.
"Whose?" pursued Mr. Hickey truculently.