"I s'pose you were afraid to go through. Thought I'd get you."
Gray shook his head impatiently. "Afraid? Of you? Oh, Mallow! Had I feared your majestic wrath, do you think I would have arranged for that doctor to see you every day? And paid his bill? Who, pray, sent in those good things for you to eat?"
There was a pause.
"Did you?"
"I did."
Again there was silence.
"Why?"
"For one thing, I was sorry for you. I really was. I had caused you and Tony a great deal of suffering, and I cannot bring myself to inflict actual suffering upon anyone without doing my best to alleviate it. Then again, I had nothing against you personally. We merely clashed in the course of—business." Mallow allowed himself to sink back upon the desk; he turned his dark goggles upon his friends in a blind stare of bewilderment.
"Well, I'll be damned!" he said, finally.
"Mallow thought we had helped to spring him." It was McWade speaking. "That's why he beat it up here and that's how we happened to put him to work."