"It's a lie," said Haskins, but without any great emotion of indignation; perhaps, being so sure that he was dying, he did not care, or it might have been that he did not have the strength left for vehemence. Still, again, it was possible that it sounded so flat and colorless, this denial, because it lacked the ring of truth. "Dago Mike done it. I knowed he'd squeal; he always was a dirty rat. I was a fool to go into a job with that--that scum. Yeah, Dago Mike was the one that did the watchman." Tish winced with a fresh throb of pain from his shoulder. "Why did you shoot Gilmore's wife?" he repeated. Haskins turned his head, let his mouth twist into a harsh smile, and, lifting his hand slowly, wiped his lips with the back of his hand. There was again a little blood. "Gilmore's wife?" he retorted in a hoarse whisper. "She was--my wife!" Wiggly Price started forward with an exclamation of amazement, and his ears danced with excitement. "W-what?" he gasped. "Y-your wife? You mean that? Great heavens, Tish, I believe he's telling the truth!" The New York detective gestured for silence with his uninjured arm. "Shut up!" he commanded tersely. "Yeah, that's--that's what she was--my wife," went on Don Haskins in a whisper, which, as he continued to talk, was at times hardly audible. "She done bigamy when she married--Gilmore. She--she never got no divorce--from me. "I'm gonna talk, see. What I'm tellin' you is strictly on the level. I know I'm goin'--fast; there ain't no use for me to--cover up. Curse the skirts! If it wasn't--for her----" His voice trailed off in a choking excitement, his eyes closed momentarily, and the two eagerly listening men were afraid that it was all over with him, but Haskins looked at them again. "I--I guess she thought she'd shook me--after I busted up a mash she had on a guy named Sarbella; but I kept cases on her--got a line on her when I come back from Chi--parole from a long stretch at Joliet. "Then I gets into that Bronx job jam, and I needs dough--bad. And quick. So I send for--for her, and she----" He had to stop again to wipe his mouth free of that trickle of blood which oozed upward from his punctured stomach. "And she came to Eighth Avenue Annie's," supplied Tish. "She gave you some money. We know that much; go on, Haskins." "She was comin' back--to-day--with a thousand iron men," proceeded the prisoner's weakening whisper. "Then Annie tipped off the cops. Curse the old hag! I dunno why Annie----" "She did not," grunted Sergeant Tish; "I saw her buying some duds and trailed her. Annie didn't double cross you." "When I lays you out--and beats it," went on Haskins, "I--I guess you know part of it, how I swipes a taxi an' blows out here?" Tish nodded. "I sneaks around the house an' spots--Helen's window, does a porch-climber stunt to the roof, gets into her room, an'----"