The something on his chest spoke in a carefully restrained whisper. "Keep very quiet."
The district attorney would have shivered had he been able to move that much. He knew that voice. It belonged to Billy Wingo.
"You shouldn't have left your window open," pointed out Billy. "Your insane love for fresh air will be the death of you yet."
The district attorney did nothing but gasp faintly.
"Would it be more comfortable if I sat on your stomach instead?" asked the oppressor prodding the other man in the throat with his gun muzzle.
"I—I—cuc-can't breathe!" the district attorney choked out.
"Just a minute," said Billy, feeling beneath the pillows, but finding no weapon, he slid from the district attorney's chest to the side of the bed. "You didn't expect to see me so soon, did you, Arthur?"
"No," was the truthful reply, "I didn't."
"I was counting on that. I hear you arrested Miss Walton."
"I—er—I had to," explained the district attorney, beginning to feel that, in the matter of Miss Walton, he had perhaps been a trifle hasty.