Maitland instinctively reversed the lever and sent his own car upward again, slowly, waiting for the other to overtake it. Peering down through the iron lattice-work he could indistinctly observe the growing cube of light, with a dark shape lying huddled in one corner of the floor. A second figure, rapidly taking shape as Anisty's, stood by the controller, braced against the side of the car, one hand on the lever, the other poising a shining thing, the flesh-colored oval of his face turned upwards in a supposititious attempt to discern the location of the dark car.
Hickey, by firing prematurely, lent him adventitious aid. The criminal replied with spirit, aiming at the flash, his bullet spattering against the back wall of the shaft. Hickey's next bullet rang with a bell-like note against the metal-work, Anisty's presumably went wide—though Maitland could have sworn he felt the cold kiss of its breath upon his cheek. And the lighted cage rocketed past and up.
Maitland needed no admonition to pursue; his blood was up, his heart singing with the lust of the man-hunt. Yet Anisty was rapidly leaving them, his car soaring at an appalling pace. Towards the top he evidently made some attempt to slow up, but either he was ignorant of the management of the lever, or else the thing had got beyond control. The cage rammed the buffers with a crash that echoed through the sounding halls like a peal of thunder-claps; it was instantaneously plunged into darkness. There followed a splintering and rending sound, and Maitland, heart in mouth, could make out dimly a dark, falling shadow in the further shaft. Yet ere it had descended a score of feet the safety-clutch acted and, with a third tremendous jar, shaking the building, the car halted.
Hickey and Maitland were then some five floors below. "Stop 'er at Nineteen," ordered the detective. There was a lilt of exultancy in his voice. "We got him now, all right, all right. He'll try to get down by—There!" Overhead the crash of a gate forced open was followed by a scurry of footsteps over the tiling. "Stop 'er and we'll head him off. So now—_eee_asy!"
Maitland shut off the power as the car reached the nineteenth floor. Hickey opened the gate and jumped out. "Shut that," he commanded sharply as Maitland followed him, "in case he gets past us."
He paused a moment in thought, heavy head on bull-neck drooping forward as he stared toward the rear of the building. He was fearless and resourceful, for all his many deficiencies. Maitland found time, quaintly enough, to regard him with detached curiosity, a rare animal, illustrating all that was best and worst in his order. Endowed with unexceptionable courage, his address in emergencies seemed altogether admirable.
"Yeh guard them stairs," he decided suddenly. "I'll run through this hall, 'nd see what's doing. Don't hesitate to shoot if he tries to jump yeh." And was gone, clumping briskly down the corridor to the rear.
Maitland, yielding the initiative to the other's 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 twenty-first floors, where the same procedure was observed; but as the latter was reached unexpected and very welcome 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 explanations, to his supreme disgust.
And, suddenly impatient beyond endurance, 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 infernal ingenuity that passed Maitland's comprehension, had managed to spirit into this place of death and darkness and whispering halls. Where she might be, in what degree of suffering and danger,—these were the considerations that sent him in search of her without a thought of personal peril, but with a sick heart and overwhelmed with a stifling sense of anxiety.