Smith said curiously:
"What do you want with her, Braun?"
"I want to speak to her."
"Come over here, Maryette," said Glenn sullenly.
The girl crept out of the shadows. Her face was ghastly.
Braun looked at her with pallid scorn:
"You little, ignorant fool," he said, "I'd have made you a better lover than you'll ever have now!"
He shrugged his square shoulders in contempt, turned without a glance at Smith and Glenn, and stepped outward into space. And as he fell there between sky and earth, hurtling downward under the stars, Glenn's pistol flashed twice, killing his quarry in midair while falling.
"Can you beat it?" he demanded hoarsely, turning on Smith. "Ain't that me all over[pg 349]!—soft-hearted enough to do that skunk a kindness thataway!"
But his youthful voice was shaking, and he stared at the edge of the abyss, listening to the far tumult now arising from the street below.