CHAPTER XXI. AGGIE AT BAY.
Burke, after the lawyer had left him, watched the door expectantly forthe coming of the girl, whom he had ordered brought before him. But,when at last Dan appeared, and stood aside to permit her passing intothe office, the Inspector gasped at the unexpectedness of the vision.He had anticipated the coming of a woman of that world with which he wasmost familiar in the exercise of his professional duties--the underworldof criminals, some one beautiful perhaps, but with the brand ofviciousness marked subtly, yet visibly for the trained eye to see. Then,even in that first moment, he told himself that he should have beenprepared for the unusual in this instance, since the girl had to do withMary Turner, and that disturbing person herself showed in face and formand manner nothing to suggest aught but a gentlewoman. And, in the nextinstant, the Inspector forgot his surprise in a sincere, almost ardentadmiration.
The girl was rather short, but of a slender elegance of form that wasravishing. She was gowned, too, with a chic nicety to arouse the envy ofall less-fortunate women. Her costume had about it an indubitable air,a finality of perfection in its kind. On another, it might have appearedperhaps the merest trifle garish. But that fault, if in fact it everexisted, was made into a virtue by the correcting innocence ofthe girl's face. It was a childish face, childish in the exquisitesmoothness of the soft, pink skin, childish in the wondering stare ofthe blue eyes, now so widely opened in dismay, childish in the wistfuldrooping of the rosebud mouth.
The girl advanced slowly, with a laggard hesitation in her movementsobviously from fear. She approached the desk, from behind which theInspector watched, fascinated by the fresh and wholesome beauty of thisyoung creature. He failed to observe the underlying anger beneath thegirl's outward display of alarm. He shook off his first impression bymeans of a resort to his customary bluster in such cases.
"Now, then, my girl," he said roughly, "I want to know----"
There came a change, wrought in the twinkling of an eye. The tiny,trimly shod foot of the girl rose and fell in a wrathful stamp.
"How dare you!" The clear blue eyes were become darkened with anger.There was a deepened leaf of red in either cheek. The drooping lipsdrooped no longer, but were bent to a haughtiness that was finelyimpressive.
Before the offended indignation of the young woman, Burke sat bewilderedby embarrassment for once in his life, and quite at a loss.
"What's that?" he said, dubiously.
The girl explained the matter explicitly enough.
"What do you mean by this outrage?" she stormed. Her voice was lowand rich, with a charming roundness that seemed the very hallmark ofgentility. But, now, it was surcharged with an indignant amazement overthe indignity put upon her by the representatives of the law. Then,abruptly, the blue eyes were softened in their fires, as by the suddennearness of tears.
"What do you mean?" the girl repeated. Her slim form was tense withwrath. "I demand my instant release." There was indescribable rebuke inher slow emphasis of the words.
Burke was impressed in spite of himself, in spite of his accustomed coldindifference to the feelings of others as necessity compelled himto make investigation of them. His harsh, blustering voice softenedperceptibly, and he spoke in a wheedling tone, such as one might employin the effort to tranquillize a spoiled child in a fit of temper.
"Wait a minute," he remonstrated. "Wait a minute!" He made a pacificallycourteous gesture toward one of the chairs, which stood by an end of thedesk. "Sit down," he invited, with an effort toward cajoling.
The scorn of the girl was superb. Her voice came icily, as she answered:
"I shall do nothing of the sort. Sit down, indeed!--here! Why, Ihave been arrested----" There came a break in the music of her tonesthrobbing resentment. A little sob crept in, and broke the sequence ofwords. The dainty face was vivid with shame. "I--" she faltered, "I'vebeen arrested--by a common policeman!"
The Inspector seized on the one flaw left him for defense against herindictment.
"No, no, miss," he argued, earnestly. "Excuse me. It wasn't any commonpoliceman--it was a detective sergeant."
But his effort to placate was quite in vain. The ingenuous little beautywith the child's face and the blue eyes so widely opened fairly pantedin her revolt against the ignominy of her position, and was not to be soeasily appeased. Her voice came vibrant with disdain. Her level gaze onthe Inspector was of a sort to suggest to him anxieties over possiblecomplications here.
"You wait!" she cried violently. "You just wait, I tell you, until mypapa hears of this!"
Burke regarded the furious girl doubtfully.
"Who is your papa?" he asked, with a bit of alarm stirring in hisbreast, for he had no mind to offend any one of importance where therewas no need.
"I sha'n't tell you," came the petulant retort from the girl. Her ivoryforehead was wrinkled charmingly in a little frown of obstinacy. "Why,"she went on, displaying new symptoms of distress over another appallingidea that flashed on her in this moment, "you would probably give myname to the reporters." Once again the rosebud mouth drooped into curvesof sorrow, of a great self-pity. "If it ever got into the newspapers, myfamily would die of shame!"
The pathos of her fear pierced through the hardened crust of the policeofficial. He spoke apologetically.
"Now, the easiest way out for both of us," he suggested, "is for youto tell me just who you are. You see, young lady, you were found in thehouse of a notorious crook."
The haughtiness of the girl waxed. It seemed as if she grew an inchtaller in her scorn of the Inspector's saying.
"How perfectly absurd!" she exclaimed, scathingly. "I was calling onMiss Mary Turner!"
"How did you come to meet her, anyhow?" Burke inquired. He stillheld his big voice to a softer modulation than that to which it washabituated.
Yet, the disdain of the girl seemed only to increase momently. Sheshowed plainly that she regarded this brass-buttoned official as oneunbearably insolent in his demeanor toward her. Nevertheless, shecondescended to reply, with an exaggeration of the aristocratic drawl toindicate her displeasure.
"I was introduced to Miss Turner," she explained, "by Mr. RichardGilder. Perhaps you have heard of his father, the owner of theEmporium."
"Oh, yes, I've heard of his father, and of him, too," Burke admitted,placatingly.
But the girl relaxed not a whit in her attitude of offense.
"Then," she went on severely, "you must see at once that you areentirely mistaken in this matter." Her blue eyes widened further asshe stared accusingly at the Inspector, who betrayed evidences ofperplexity, and hesitated for an answer. Then, the doll-like, charmingface took on a softer look, which had in it a suggestion of appeal.
"Don't you see it?" she demanded.
"Well, no," Burke rejoined uneasily; "not exactly, I don't!" In thepresence of this delicate and graceful femininity, he experienced asudden, novel distaste for his usual sledge-hammer methods of attackin interrogation. Yet, his duty required that he should continue hisquestioning. He found himself in fact between the devil and the deepsea--though this particular devil appeared rather as an angel of light.
Now, at his somewhat feeble remark in reply to her query, the childishface grew as hard as its curving contours would permit.
"Sir!" she cried indignantly. Her little head was thrown back inscornful reproof, and she turned a shoulder toward the officialcontemptuously.
"Now, now!" Burke exclaimed in remonstrance. After all, he could not bebrutal with this guileless maiden. He must, however, make the situationclear to her, lest she think him a beast--which would never do!
"You see, young lady," he went on with a gentleness of voice and mannerthat would have been inconceivable to Dacey and Chicago Red; "you see,the fact is that, even if you were introduced to this Mary Turner byyoung Mr. Gilder, this same Mary Turner herself is an ex-convict, andshe's just been arrested for murder."
At the dread word, a startling change was wrought in the girl. Shewheeled to face the Inspector, h
er slender body swaying a little towardhim. The rather heavy brows were lifted slightly in a disbelievingstare. The red lips were parted, rounded to a tremulous horror.
"Murder!" she gasped; and then was silent.
"Yes," Burke went on, wholly at ease now, since he had broken the icethus effectually. "You see, if there's a mistake about you, you don'twant it to go any further--not a mite further, that's sure. So, you see,now, that's one of the reasons why I must know just who you are." Then,in his turn, Burke put the query that the girl had put to him a littlewhile before. "You see that, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, yes!" was the instant agreement. "You should have told me allabout this horrid thing in the first place." Now, the girl's manner wastransformed. She smiled wistfully on the Inspector, and the glance ofthe blue eyes was very kind, subtly alluring. Yet in this unbending,there appeared even more decisively than hitherto the fine qualitiesin bearing of one delicately nurtured. She sank down in a chair by thedesk, and forthwith spoke with a simplicity that in itself was somehowpeculiarly potent in its effect on the official who gave attentive ear.
"My name is Helen Travers West," she announced.
Burke started a little in his seat, and regarded the speaker with a newdeference as he heard that name uttered.
"Not the daughter of the railway president?" he inquired.
"Yes," the girl admitted. Then, anew, she displayed a serious agitationover the thought of any possible publicity in this affair.
"Oh, please, don't tell any one," she begged prettily. The blue eyeswere very imploring, beguiling, too. The timid smile that wreathed thetiny mouth was marvelously winning. The neatly gloved little hands wereheld outstretched, clasped in supplication. "Surely, sir, you see nowquite plainly why it must never be known by any one in all the wide,wide world that I have ever been brought to this perfectly dreadfulplace--though you have been quite nice!" Her voice dropped to a noteof musical prayerfulness. The words were spoken very softly and veryslowly, with intonations difficult for a man to deny. "Please let me gohome." She plucked a minute handkerchief from her handbag, put it to hereyes, and began to sob quietly.
The burly Inspector of Police was moved to quick sympathy. Really, whenall was said and done, it was a shame that one like her should by somefreak of fate have become involved in the sordid, vicious things thathis profession made it obligatory on him to investigate. There was aconsiderable hint of the paternal in his air as he made an attempt tooffer consolation to the afflicted damsel.
"That's all right, little lady," he exclaimed cheerfully. "Now, don'tyou be worried--not a little bit. Take it from me, Miss West.... Just goahead, and tell me all you know about this Turner woman. Did you see heryesterday?"
The girl's sobs ceased. After a final dab with the minute handkerchief,she leaned forward a little toward the Inspector, and proceeded to put aquestion to him with great eagerness.
"Will you let me go home as soon as I've told you the teensy little Iknow?"
"Yes," Burke agreed promptly, with an encouraging smile. And for a goodmeasure of reassurance, he added as one might to an alarmed child: "Noone is going to hurt you, young lady."
"Well, then, you see, it was this way," began the brisk explanation."Mr. Gilder was calling on me one afternoon, and he said to me then thathe knew a very charming young woman, who----"
Here the speech ended abruptly, and once again the handkerchief wasbrought into play as the sobbing broke forth with increased violence.Presently, the girl's voice rose in a wail.
"Oh, this is dreadful--dreadful!" In the final word, the wail broke to amoan.
Burke felt himself vaguely guilty as the cause of such suffering on thepart of one so young, so fair, so innocent. As a culprit, he sought hisbest to afford a measure of soothing for this grief that had had itssource in his performance of duty.
"That's all right, little lady," he urged in a voice as nearlymellifluous as he could contrive with its mighty volume. "That's allright. I have to keep on telling you. Nobody's going to hurt you--not alittle bit. Believe me! Why, nobody ever would want to hurt you!"
But his well-meant attempt to assuage the stricken creature's wo wasfutile. The sobbing continued. With it came a plaintive cry, many timesrepeated, softly, but very miserably.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
"Isn't there something else you can tell me about this woman?" Burkeinquired in desperation before the plaintive outburst. He hoped todistract her from such grief over her predicament.
The girl gave no least heed to the question.
"Oh, I'm so frightened!" she gasped.
"Tut, tut!" the Inspector chided. "Now, I tell you there's nothing atall for you to be afraid of."
"I'm afraid!" the girl asserted dismally. "I'm afraid you will--putme--in a cell!" Her voice sank to a murmur hardly audible as shespoke the words so fraught with dread import to one of her refinedsensibilities.
"Pooh!" Burke returned, gallantly. "Why, my dear young lady, nobody inthe world could think of you and a cell at the same time--no, indeed!"
Instantly, the girl responded to this bald flattery. She fairly radiatedappreciation of the compliment, as she turned her eyes, dewy with tears,on the somewhat flustered Inspector.
"Oh, thank you!" she exclaimed, with naive enjoyment.
Forthwith, Burke set out to make the most of this favorable opportunity.
"Are you sure you've told me all you know about this woman?" hequestioned.
"Oh, yes! I've only seen her two or three times," came the readyresponse. The voice changed to supplication, and again the clasped handswere extended beseechingly.
"Oh, please, Commissioner! Won't you let me go home?"
The use of a title higher than his own flattered the Inspector, and hewas moved to graciousness. Besides, it was obvious that his police netin this instance had enmeshed only the most harmless of doves. He smiledencouragingly.
"Well, now, little lady," he said, almost tenderly, "if I let yougo now, will you promise to let me know if you are able to think ofanything else about this Turner woman?"
"I will--indeed, I will!" came the fervent assurance. There wassomething almost--quite provocative in the flash of gratitude that shoneforth from the blue eyes of the girl in that moment of her superlativerelief. It moved Burke to a desire for rehabilitation in her estimation.
"Now, you see," he went on in his heavy voice, yet very kindly, and witha sort of massive playfulness in his manner, "no one has hurt you--noteven a little bit, after all. Now, you run right home to your mother."
The girl did not need to be told twice. On the instant, she sprang upjoyously, and started toward the door, with a final ravishing smile forthe pleased official at the desk.
"I'll go just as fast as ever I can," the musical voice made assuranceblithely.
"Give my compliments to your father," Burke requested courteously. "Andtell him I'm sorry I frightened you."
The girl turned at the door.... After all, too great haste might beindiscreet.
"I will, Commissioner," she promised, with an arch smile. "And I knowpapa will be so grateful to you for all your kindness to me!"
It was at this critical moment that Cassidy entered from the oppositeside of the office. As his eyes fell on the girl at the door across fromhim, his stolid face lighted in a grin. And, in that same instant ofrecognition between the two, the color went out of the girl's face. Thelittle red lips snapped together in a line of supreme disgust againstthis vicissitude of fate after all her manoeuverings in the face of theenemy. She stood motionless in wordless dismay, impotent before thisdisaster forced on her by untoward chance.
"Hello, Aggie!" the detective remarked, with a smirk, while theInspector stared from one to the other with rounded eyes of wonder, andhis jaw dropped from the stark surprise of this new development.
The girl returned deliberately to the chair she had occupied throughthe interview with the Inspector, and dropped into it weakly. Her formrested there limply now, and the blue eyes stared disconsolately at the
blank wall before her. She realized that fate had decreed defeat for herin the game. It was after a minute of silence in which the two men satstaring that at last she spoke with a savage wrath against the pit intowhich she had fallen after her arduous efforts.
"Ain't that the damnedest luck!"
For a little interval still, Burke turned his glances from the girl toCassidy, and then back again to the girl, who sat immobile with her blueeyes steadfastly fixed on the wall. The police official was, in truth,totally bewildered. Here was inexplicable mystery. Finally, he addressedthe detective curtly.
"Cassidy, do you know this woman?"
"Sure, I do!" came the placid answer. He went on to explain with thedirect brevity of his kind. "She's little Aggie Lynch--con' woman, fromBuffalo--two years for blackmail--did her time at Burnsing."
With this succinct narrative concerning the girl who sat mute andmotionless in the chair with her eyes fast on the wall, Cassidy relapsedinto silence, during which he stared rather perplexedly at his chief,who seemed to be in the throes of unusual emotion. As the detectiveexpressed it in his own vernacular: For the first time in hisexperience, the Inspector appeared to be actually "rattled."
For a little time, there was silence, the while Burke sat staring at theaverted face of the girl. His expression was that of one who has justundergone a soul-stirring shock. Then, presently, he set his featuresgrimly, rose from his chair, and walked to a position directly in thefront of the girl, who still refused to look in his direction.
"Young woman----" he began, severely. Then, of a sudden he laughed."You picked the right business, all right, all right!" he said, with acertain enthusiasm. He laughed aloud until his eyes were only slits, andhis ample paunch trembled vehemently.
"Well," he went on, at last, "I certainly have to hand it to you, kid.You're a beaut'!"
Aggie sniffed vehemently in rebuke of the gross partiality of fate inhis behalf.
"Just as I had him goin'!" she said bitterly, as if in self-communion,without shifting her gaze from the blank surface of the wall.
Now, however, Burke was reminded once again of his official duties, andhe turned quickly to the attentive Cassidy.
"Have you got a picture of this young woman?" he asked brusquely. Andwhen Cassidy had replied in the negative, he again faced the adventuresswith a mocking grin--in which mockery, too, was a fair fragment forhimself, who had been so thoroughly within her toils of blandishment.
"I'd dearly love to have a photograph of you, Miss Helen Travers West,"he said.
The speech aroused the stolid detective to a new interest.
"Helen Travers West?" he repeated, inquiringly.
"Oh, that's the name she told me," the Inspector explained, somewhatshamefacedly before this question from his inferior. Then he chuckled,for he had sense of humor sufficient to triumph even over his owndiscomfiture in this encounter. "And she had me winging, too!" heconfessed. "Yes, I admit it." He turned to the girl admiringly. "Yousure are immense, little one--immense!" He smiled somewhat more in hisofficial manner of mastery. "And now, may I have the honor of asking youto accept the escort of Mr. Cassidy to our gallery."
Aggie sprang to her feet and regarded the Inspector with eyes in whichwas now no innocence, such as had beguiled him so recently from thoseingenuous orbs.
"Oh, can that stuff!" she cried, crossly. "Let's get down to business onthe dot--and no frills on it! Keep to cases!"
"Now you're talking," Burke declared, with a new appreciation of theversatility of this woman--who had not been wasting her time hitherto,and had no wish to lose it now.
"You can't do anything to us," Aggie declared, strongly. There remainedno trace of the shrinking violet that had been Miss Helen Travers West.Now, she revealed merely the business woman engaged in a fight againstthe law, which was opposed definitely to her peculiar form of business.
"You can't do anything to me, and you know you can't!" she went on, withan almost convincing tranquillity of assertion. "Why, I'll be sprunginside an hour." There came a ripple of laughter that reminded theInspector of the fashion in which he had been overcome by this woman'swiles. And she spoke with a certitude of conviction that was ratherterrifying to one who had just fallen under the stress of her spells.
"Why, habeas corpus is my lawyer's middle name!"
"On the level, now," the Inspector demanded, quite unmoved by the finaldeclarations, "when did you see Mary Turner last?"
Aggie resorted anew to her practices of deception. Her voice held theaccents of unimpeachable truth, and her eyes looked unflinchingly intothose of her questioner as she answered.
"Early this morning," she declared. "We slept together last night,because I had the willies. She blew the joint about half-past ten."
Burke shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger.
"What's the use of your lying to me?" he remonstrated.
"What, me?" Aggie clamored, with every evidence of being deeply woundedby the charge against her veracity. "Oh, I wouldn't do anythinglike that--on the level! What would be the use? I couldn't fool you,Commissioner."
Burke stroked his chin sheepishly, under the influence of memories ofMiss Helen Travers West.
"So help me," Aggie continued with the utmost solemnity, "Mary neverleft the house all night. I'd swear that's the truth on a pile of Biblesa mile high!"
"Have to be higher than that," the Inspector commented, grimly. "Yousee, Aggie Lynch, Mary Turner was arrested just after midnight." Hisvoice deepened and came blustering. "Young woman, you'd better tell allyou know."
"I don't know a thing!" Aggie retorted, sharply. She faced the Inspectorfiercely, quite unabashed by the fact that her vigorous offer to commitperjury had been of no avail.
Burke, with a quick movement, drew the pistol from his pocket andextended it toward the girl.
"How long has she owned this gun?" he said, threateningly.
Aggie showed no trace of emotion as her glance ran over the weapon.
"She didn't own it," was her firm answer.
"Oh, then it's Garson's!" Burke exclaimed.
"I don't know whose it is," Aggie replied, with an air of boredom wellcalculated to deceive. "I never laid eyes on it till now."
The Inspector's tone abruptly took on a somber coloring, with anunderlying menace.
"English Eddie was killed with this gun last night," he said. "Now, whodid it?" His broad face was sinister. "Come on, now! Who did it?"
Aggie became flippant, seemingly unimpressed by the Inspector'ssavageness.
"How should I know?" she drawled. "What do you think I am--afortune-teller?"
"You'd better come through," Burke reiterated. Then his manner changedto wheedling. "If you're the wise kid I think you are, you will."
Aggie waxed very petulant over this insistence.
"I tell you, I don't know anything! Say, what are you trying to hand me,anyway?"
Burke scowled on the girl portentously, and shook his head.
"Now, it won't do, I tell you, Aggie Lynch. I'm wise. You listen to me."Once more his manner turned to the cajoling. "You tell me what you know,and I'll see you make a clean get-away, and I'll slip you a nice littlepiece of money, too."
The girl's face changed with startling swiftness. She regarded theInspector shrewdly, a crafty glint in her eyes.
"Let me get this straight," she said. "If I tell you what I know aboutMary Turner and Joe Garson, I get away?"
"Clean!" Burke ejaculated, eagerly.
"And you'll slip me some coin, too?"
"That's it!" came the hasty assurance. "Now, what do you say?"
The small figure grew tense. The delicate, childish face was suddenlydistorted with rage, a rage black and venomous. The blue eyes wereblazing. The voice came thin and piercing.
"I say, you're a great big stiff! What do you think I am?" she stormedat the discomfited Inspector, while Cassidy looked on in some enjoymentat beholding his superior being worsted. Aggie wheeled on the detective."Say, take me out of here," she cr
ied in a voice surcharged withdisgust. "I'd rather be in the cooler than here with him!"
Now Burke's tone was dangerous.
"You'll tell," he growled, "or you'll go up the river for a stretch."
"I don't know anything," the girl retorted, spiritedly. "And, if I did,I wouldn't tell--not in a million years!" She thrust her head forwardchallengingly as she faced the Inspector, and her expression wasresolute. "Now, then," she ended, "send me up--if you can!"
"Take her away," Burke snapped to the detective.
Aggie went toward Cassidy without any sign of reluctance.
"Yes, do, please!" she exclaimed with a sneer. "And do it in a hurry.Being in the room with him makes me sick! She turned to stare at theInspector with eyes that were very clear and very hard. In this moment,there was nothing childish in their gaze.
"Thought I'd squeal, did you?" she said, evenly. "Yes, I will"--the redlips bent to a smile of supreme scorn--"like hell!"