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 "Arm bad?" asked Ellison, sympathetically. "Let me help you, old man."

"Baretta," said Calvin, concentrating upon the affair of the night, "Baretta never knew who shot him. He couldn't have seen, so he couldn't have told it to Zenn or any one else; but the lot of them knew she was along. Somebody might give her trouble, Ellison. Send a man up to her building for me, won't you? Don't let anybody bother her—not even newspaper men. I want her to sleep, Ellison."

"I'll see to it," assured Ellison, regarding Clarke more thoughtfully. "I believe I'll detail a man to look after you, too," he threatened, as he departed.

Calvin reclined upon his pillows, imagining Joan Royle under his protection; and this feeling that he guarded her, supplied him a small, ephemeral satisfaction. To-morrow, in the morning, Frederic Ketlar will be freed; to-morrow, in court, Calvin Clarke, himself, will ask his release. "Your honor," the formal phrase, with its old Latin words, repeated itself in Calvin's head, "the State asks leave to nolle prosequi." Whereupon, Ketlar will turn from the judge a free man and no guard of Calvin Clarke's can keep Ketlar from her.

Ellison returned in the forenoon.

"Slept?" he inquired.

"Not much," admitted Calvin, who as a matter of fact had not closed his eyes. "What's happened?"

"About what you'd expect," reported Ellison. "Zenn and the rest of the living are sticking to their alibis; and there's also an alibi for the late lamented. I am given to understand that George Baretta was a model man last night. He had merely been at Tut's Temple, where also were many other estimable citizens; about the time you left for your ride into the country, George