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 house where his old friends foregathered, he went out to Fifteenth Street. Costello had sold his barber shop, and the place had become a saloon. The saloon was quiet that night. Gilman drank with the bartender, and, of course, talked about the Brokoski killing. The bartender had made a study of that case, and discussed it with the curled lip of the specialist.

"They didn't do a t'ing to Tom but t'row the hooks into 'im all right, all right. It was a case of him in the stripes from the start. Say, them lawyer guys and fly-cops'd frost you."

Then carefully locating the actors in the tragedy, he reproduced it vividly before Gilman's eyes. Brokoski had faced the wall where the hole was. Whalen's back had been to it. Brokoski had sat with his back to the window. The barkeeper plunged his red hands into a drawer, rattled a corkscrew, a knife, a revolver and a jigger, and then drew out a small piece of lead. It was a thirty-eight caliber bullet.

"That's the boy that done Brokoski," he said.

"Where did you get it?" asked Gilman, with the mild awe a curio excites in men.