rolls of money they held
into the hands of the police and begged like children to be allowed to
escape.

The instant the door fell and the raid was declared Hefflefinger slipped
over the cross rails on which he had been lying, hung for an instant by
his hands, and then dropped into the centre of the fighting mob on the
floor. He was out of it in an instant with the agility of a pickpocket,
was across the room and at Hade's throat like a dog. The murderer, for
the moment, was the calmer man of the two.

"Here," he panted, "hands off, now. There's no need for all this
violence. There's no great harm in looking at a fight, is there? There's
a hundred-dollar bill in my right hand; take it and let me slip out of
this. No one is looking. Here."

But the detective only held him the closer.

"I want you for burglary," he whispered under his breath. "You've got to
come with me now, and quick. The less fuss you make, the better for both
of us. If you don't know who I am, you can feel my badge under my coat
there. I've got the authority. It's all regular, and when we're out of
this d--d row I'll show you the papers."

He took one hand from Hade's throat and pulled a pair of handcuffs from
his pocket.

"It's a mistake. This is an outrage," gasped the murderer, white and
trembling, but dreadfully alive and desperate for his liberty. "Let me
go, I tell you! Take your hands off of me! Do I look like a burglar, you
fool?"

"I know who you look like," whispered the detective, with his face close
to the face of his prisoner. "Now, will you go easy as a burglar, or
shall I tell these men who you are and what I _do_ want you for?
Shall I call out your real name or not? Shall I tell them? Quick, speak
up; shall I?"

There was something so exultant--something so unnecessarily savage in
the officer's face that the man he held saw that the detective knew him
for what he really was, and the hands that had held his throat slipped
down around his shoulders, or he would have fallen. The man's eyes
opened and closed again, and he swayed weakly backward and forward, and
choked as if his throat were dry and burning. Even to such a hardened
connoisseur in crime as Gallegher, who stood closely by, drinking it in,
there was something so abject in the man's terror that he regarded him
with what was almost a touch of pity.

"For God's sake," Hade begged, "let me go. Come with me to my room and
I'll give you half the money. I'll divide with you