The pathos of her fear pierced through the hardened crust of the police official. He spoke apologetically.

"Now, the easiest way out for both of us," he suggested, "is for you to tell me just who you are. You see, young lady, you were found in the house of a notorious crook."

The haughtiness of the girl waxed. It seemed as if she grew an inch taller in her scorn of the Inspector's saying.

"How perfectly absurd!" she exclaimed, scathingly. "I was calling on Miss Mary Turner!"

"How did you come to meet her, anyhow?" Burke inquired. He still held his big voice to a softer modulation than that to which it was habituated.

Yet, the disdain of the girl seemed only to increase momently. She showed plainly that she regarded this brass-buttoned official as one unbearably insolent in his demeanor toward her. Nevertheless, she condescended to reply, with an exaggeration of the aristocratic drawl to indicate her displeasure.

"I was introduced to Miss Turner," she explained, "by Mr. Richard Gilder. Perhaps you have heard of his father, the owner of the Emporium."

"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 are entirely mistaken in this matter." Her blue eyes widened further as she stared accusingly at the Inspector, who betrayed evidences of perplexity, and hesitated for an answer. Then, the doll-like, charming face 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 the presence of this delicate and graceful femininity, he experienced a sudden, novel distaste for his usual sledge-hammer methods of attack in interrogation. Yet, his duty required that he should continue his questioning. He found himself in fact between the devil and the deep sea—though this particular devil appeared rather as an angel of light.

Now, at his somewhat feeble remark in reply to her query, the childish face grew as hard as its curving contours would permit.

"Sir!" she cried indignantly. Her little head was thrown back in scornful reproof, and she turned a shoulder toward the official contemptuously.

"Now, now!" Burke exclaimed in remonstrance. After all, he could not be brutal with this guileless maiden. He must, however, make the situation clear 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 manner that would have been inconceivable to Dacey and Chicago Red; "you see, the fact is that, even if you were introduced to this Mary Turner by young Mr. Gilder, this same Mary Turner herself is an ex-convict, and she's just been arrested for murder."

At the dread word, a startling change was wrought in the girl. She wheeled to face the Inspector, her slender body swaying a little toward him. The rather heavy brows were lifted slightly in a disbelieving stare. 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 ice thus effectually. "You see, if there's a mistake about you, you don't want 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 little while before. "You see that, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, yes!" was the instant agreement. "You should have told me all about this horrid thing in the first place." Now, the girl's manner was transformed. She smiled wistfully on the Inspector, and the glance of the blue eyes was very kind, subtly alluring. Yet in this unbending, there appeared even more decisively than hitherto the fine qualities in bearing of one delicately nurtured. She sank down in a chair by the desk, and forthwith spoke with a simplicity that in itself was somehow peculiarly 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 new deference 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 agitation over the thought of any possible publicity in this affair.

"Oh, please, don't tell any one," she begged prettily. The blue eyes were very imploring, beguiling, too. The timid smile that wreathed the tiny mouth was marvelously winning. The neatly gloved little hands were held outstretched, clasped in supplication. "Surely, sir, you see now quite 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 dreadful place—though you have been quite nice!" Her voice dropped to a note of musical prayerfulness. The words were spoken very softly and very slowly, with intonations difficult for a man to deny. "Please let me go home." She plucked a minute handkerchief from her handbag, put it to her eyes, and began to sob quietly.

The burly Inspector of Police was moved to quick sympathy. Really, when all was said and done, it was a shame that one like her should by some freak of fate have become involved in the sordid, vicious things that his profession made it obligatory on him to investigate. There was a considerable hint of the paternal in his air as he made an attempt to offer consolation to the afflicted damsel.

"That's all right, little lady," he exclaimed cheerfully. "Now, don't you be worried—not a little bit. Take it from me, Miss West.... Just go ahead, and tell me all you know about this Turner woman. Did you see her yesterday?"

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 a question to him with great eagerness.

"Will you let me go home as soon as I've told you the teensy little I know?"

"Yes," Burke agreed promptly, with an encouraging smile. And for a good measure of reassurance, he added as one might to an alarmed child: "No one 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 that he knew a very charming young woman, who——"

Here the speech ended abruptly, and once again the handkerchief was brought 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 a moan.

Burke felt himself vaguely guilty as the cause of such suffering on the part of one so young, so fair, so innocent. As a culprit, he sought his best to afford a measure of soothing for this grief that had had its source in his performance of duty.

"That's all right, little lady," he urged in a voice as nearly mellifluous as he could contrive with its mighty volume. "That's all right. I have to keep on telling you. Nobody's going to hurt you—not a little bit. Believe me! Why, nobody ever would want to hurt you!"

But his well-meant attempt to assuage the stricken creature's wo was futile. The sobbing continued. With it came a plaintive cry, many times repeated, softly, but very miserably.

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

"Isn't there something else you can tell me about this woman?" Burke inquired in desperation before the plaintive outburst. He hoped to distract 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 at all for you to be afraid of."

"I'm afraid!" the girl asserted dismally. "I'm afraid you will—put me—in a cell!" Her voice sank to a murmur hardly audible as she spoke the words so fraught with dread import to one of her refined sensibilities.

"Pooh!" Burke returned, gallantly. "Why, my dear young lady, nobody in the world could think of you and a cell at the same time—no, indeed!"

Instantly, the girl responded to this bald flattery. She fairly radiated appreciation 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?" he questioned.

"Oh, yes! I've only seen her two or three times," came the ready response. The voice changed to supplication, and again the clasped hands were 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 he was moved to graciousness. Besides, it was obvious that his police net in this instance had enmeshed only the most harmless of doves. He smiled encouragingly.

"Well, now, little lady," he said, almost tenderly, "if I let you go now, will you promise to let me know if you are able to think of anything else about this Turner woman?"

"I will—indeed, I will!" came the fervent assurance. There was something almost—quite provocative in the flash of gratitude that shone forth from the blue eyes of the girl in that moment of her superlative relief. 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 with a sort of massive playfulness in his manner, "no one has hurt you—not even 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 up joyously, and started toward the door, with a final ravishing smile for the pleased official at the desk.

"I'll go just as fast as ever I can," the musical voice made assurance blithely.

"Give my compliments to your father," Burke requested courteously. "And tell him I'm sorry I frightened you."

The girl turned at the door.... After all, too great haste might be indiscreet.

"I will, Commissioner," she promised, with an arch smile. "And I know papa will be so grateful to you for all your kindness to me!"

It was at this critical moment that Cassidy entered from the opposite side of the office. As his eyes fell on the girl at the door across from him, his stolid face lighted in a grin. And, in that same instant of recognition between the two, the color went out of the girl's face. The little red lips snapped together in a line of supreme disgust against this vicissitude of fate after all her manoeuverings in the face of the enemy. She stood motionless in wordless dismay, impotent before this disaster forced on her by untoward chance.

"Hello, Aggie!" the detective remarked, with a smirk, while the Inspector stared from one to the other with rounded eyes of wonder, and his jaw dropped from the stark surprise of this new development.

The girl returned deliberately to the chair she had occupied through the interview with the Inspector, and dropped into it weakly. Her form rested there limply now, and the blue eyes stared disconsolately at the blank wall before her. She realized that fate had decreed defeat for her in the game. It was after a minute of silence in which the two men sat staring that at last she spoke with a savage wrath against the pit into which 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 to Cassidy, and then back again to the girl, who sat immobile with her blue eyes steadfastly fixed on the wall. The police official was, in truth, totally bewildered. Here was inexplicable mystery. Finally, he addressed the detective curtly.

"Cassidy, do you know this woman?"

"Sure, I do!" came the placid answer. He went on to explain with the direct brevity of his kind. "She's little Aggie Lynch—con' woman, from Buffalo—two years for blackmail—did her time at Burnsing."

With this succinct narrative concerning the girl who sat mute and motionless in the chair with her eyes fast on the wall, Cassidy relapsed into silence, during which he stared rather perplexedly at his chief, who seemed to be in the throes of unusual emotion. As the detective expressed it in his own vernacular: For the first time in his experience, the Inspector appeared to be actually "rattled."

For a little time, there was silence, the while Burke sat staring at the averted face of the girl. His expression was that of one who has just undergone a soul-stirring shock. Then, presently, he set his features grimly, rose from his chair, and walked to a position directly in the front 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 a certain enthusiasm. He laughed aloud until his eyes were only slits, and his 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 in his 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, and he turned quickly to the attentive Cassidy.

"Have you got a picture of this young woman?" he asked brusquely. And when Cassidy had replied in the negative, he again faced the adventuress with a mocking grin—in which mockery, too, was a fair fragment for himself, 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, somewhat shamefacedly before this question from his inferior. Then he chuckled, for he had sense of humor sufficient to triumph even over his own discomfiture in this encounter. "And she had me winging, too!" he confessed. "Yes, I admit it." He turned to the girl admiringly. "You sure are immense, little one—immense!" He smiled somewhat more in his official manner of mastery. "And now, may I have the honor of asking you to accept the escort of Mr. Cassidy to our gallery."

Aggie sprang to her feet and regarded the Inspector with eyes in which was now no innocence, such as had beguiled him so recently from those ingenuous orbs.

"Oh, can that stuff!" she cried, crossly. "Let's get down to business on the dot—and no frills on it! Keep to cases!"

"Now you're talking," Burke declared, with a new appreciation of the versatility 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 remained no trace of the shrinking violet that had been Miss Helen Travers West. Now, she revealed merely the business woman engaged in a fight against the 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, with an almost convincing tranquillity of assertion. "Why, I'll be sprung inside an hour." There came a ripple of laughter that reminded the Inspector of the fashion in which he had been overcome by this woman's wiles. And she spoke with a certitude of conviction that was rather terrifying 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 final declarations, "when did you see Mary Turner last?"

Aggie resorted anew to her practices of deception. Her voice held the accents of unimpeachable truth, and her eyes looked unflinchingly into those 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 wounded by the charge against her veracity. "Oh, I wouldn't do anything like 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 of Miss Helen Travers West.

"So help me," Aggie continued with the utmost solemnity, "Mary never left the house all night. I'd swear that's the truth on a pile of Bibles a mile high!"

"Have to be higher than that," the Inspector commented, grimly. "You see, Aggie Lynch, Mary Turner was arrested just after midnight." His voice deepened and came blustering. "Young woman, you'd better tell all you know."

"I don't know a thing!" Aggie retorted, sharply. She faced the Inspector fiercely, quite unabashed by the fact that her vigorous offer to commit perjury had been of no avail.

Burke, with a quick movement, drew the pistol from his pocket and extended 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 well calculated to deceive. "I never laid eyes on it till now."

The Inspector's tone abruptly took on a somber coloring, with an underlying menace.

"English Eddie was killed with this gun last night," he said. "Now, who did it?" His broad face was sinister. "Come on, now! Who did it?"

Aggie became flippant, seemingly unimpressed by the Inspector's savageness.

"How should I know?" she drawled. "What do you think I am—a fortune-teller?"

"You'd better come through," Burke reiterated. Then his manner changed to 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 little piece of money, too."

The girl's face changed with startling swiftness. She regarded the Inspector shrewdly, a crafty glint in her eyes.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "If I tell you what I know about Mary 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 suddenly distorted with rage, a rage black and venomous. The blue eyes were blazing. The voice came thin and piercing.

"I say, you're a great big stiff! What do you think I am?" she stormed at the discomfited Inspector, while Cassidy looked on in some enjoyment at beholding his superior being worsted. Aggie wheeled on the detective. "Say, take me out of here," she cried in a voice surcharged with disgust. "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 forward challengingly as she faced the Inspector, and her expression was resolute. "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 the Inspector 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 red lips bent to a smile of supreme scorn—"like hell!"



CHAPTER XXII. THE TRAP THAT FAILED.

Burke, despite his quality of heaviness, was blest with a keen sense of humor, against which at times his professional labors strove mutinously. In the present instance, he had failed utterly to obtain any information of value from the girl whom he had just been examining. On the contrary, he had been befooled outrageously by a female criminal, in a manner to wound deeply his professional pride. Nevertheless, he bore no grudge against the adventuress. His sense of the absurd served him well, and he took a lively enjoyment in recalling the method by which her plausible wiles had beguiled him. He gave her a real respect for the adroitness with which she had deceived him—and he was not one to be readily deceived. So, now, as the scornful maiden went out of the door under the escort of Cassidy, Burke bowed gallantly to her lithe back, and blew a kiss from his thick fingertips, in mocking reverence for her as an artist in her way. Then, he seated himself, pressed the desk call-button, and, when he had learned that Edward Gilder was arrived, ordered that the magnate and the District Attorney be admitted, and that the son, also, be sent up from his cell.

"It's a bad business, sir," Burke said, with hearty sympathy, to the shaken father, after the formal greetings that followed the entrance of the two men. "It's a very bad business."

"What does he say?" Gilder questioned. There was something pitiful in the distress of this man, usually so strong and so certain of his course. Now, he was hesitant in his movements, and his mellow voice came more weakly than its wont. There was a pathetic pleading in the dulled eyes with which he regarded the Inspector.

"Nothing!" Burke answered. "That's why I sent for you. I suppose Mr. Demarest has made the situation plain to you."

Gilder nodded, his face miserable.

"Yes," he has explained it to me, he said in a lifeless voice. "It's a terrible position for my boy. But you'll release him at once, won't you?" Though he strove to put confidence into his words, his painful doubt was manifest.

"I can't," Burke replied, reluctantly, but bluntly. "You ought not to expect it, Mr. Gilder."

"But," came the protest, delivered with much more spirit, "you know very well that he didn't do it!"

Burke shook his head emphatically in denial of the allegation.

"I don't know anything about it—yet," he contradicted.

The face of the magnate went white with fear.

"Inspector," he cried brokenly, "you—don't mean—"

Burke answered with entire candor.

"I mean, Mr. Gilder, that you've got to make him talk. That's what I want you to do, for all our sakes. Will you?"

"I'll do my best," the unhappy man replied, forlornly.

A minute later, Dick, in charge of an officer, was brought into the room. He was pale, a little disheveled from his hours in a cell. He still wore his evening clothes of the night before. His face showed clearly the deepened lines, graven by the suffering to which he had been subjected, but there was no weakness in his expression. Instead, a new force that love and sorrow had brought out in his character was plainly visible. The strength of his nature was springing to full life under the stimulus of the ordeal through which he was passing.

The father went forward quickly, and caught Dick's hands in a mighty grip.

"My boy!" he murmured, huskily. Then, he made a great effort, and controlled his emotion to some extent. "The Inspector tells me," he went on, "that you've refused to talk—to answer his questions."

Dick, too, winced under the pain of this meeting with his father in a situation so sinister. But he was, to some degree, apathetic from over-much misery. Now, in reply to his father's words, he only nodded a quiet assent.

"That wasn't wise under the circumstances," the father remonstrated hurriedly. "However, now, Demarest and I are here to protect your interests, so that you can talk freely." He went on with a little catch of anxiety in his voice. "Now, Dick, tell us! Who killed that man? We must know. Tell me."

Burke broke in impatiently, with his blustering fashion of address.

"Where did you get——?"

But Demarest raised a restraining hand.

"Wait, please!" he admonished the Inspector. "You wait a bit." He went a step toward the young man. "Give the boy a chance," he said, and his voice was very friendly as he went on speaking. "Dick, I don't want to frighten you, but your position is really a dangerous one. Your only chance is to speak with perfect frankness. I pledge you my word, I'm telling the truth, Dick." There was profound concern in the lawyer's thin face, and his voice, trained to oratorical arts, was emotionally persuasive. "Dick, my boy, I want you to forget that I'm the District Attorney, and remember only that I'm an old friend of yours, and of your father's, who is trying very hard to help you. Surely, you can trust me. Now, Dick, tell me: Who shot Griggs?"

There came a long pause. Burke's face was avid with desire for knowledge, with the keen expectancy of the hunter on the trail, which was characteristic of him in his professional work. The District Attorney himself was less vitally eager, but his curiosity, as well as his wish to escape from an embarrassing situation, showed openly on his alert countenance. The heavy features of the father were twisting a little in nervous spasms, for to him this hour was all anguish, since his only son was in such horrible plight. Dick alone seemed almost tranquil, though the outward calm was belied by the flickering of his eyelids and the occasional involuntary movement of the lips. Finally he spoke, in a cold, weary voice.

"I shot Griggs," he said.

Demarest realized subtly that his plea had failed, but he made ar effort to resist the impression, to take the admission at its face value.

"Why?" he demanded.

Dick's answer came in the like unmeaning tones, and as wearily.

"Because I thought he was a burglar."

The District Attorney was beginning to feel his professional pride aroused against this young man who so flagrantly repelled his attempts to learn the truth concerning the crime that had been committed. He resorted to familiar artifices for entangling one questioned.

"Oh, I see!" he said, in a tone of conviction. "Now, let's go back a little. Burke says you told him last night that you had persuaded your wife to come over to the house, and join you there. Is that right?"

"Yes." The monosyllable was uttered indifferently. "And, while the two of you were talking," Demarest continued in a matter-of-fact manner. He did not conclude the sentence, but asked instead: "Now, tell me, Dick, just what did happen, won't you?"

There was no reply; and, after a little interval, the lawyer resumed his questioning.

"Did this burglar come into the room?"

Dick nodded an assent.

"And he attacked you?"

There came another nod of affirmation.

"And there was a struggle?"

"Yes," Dick said, and now there was resolution in his answer.

"And you shot him?" Demarest asked, smoothly.

"Yes," the young man said again.

"Then," the lawyer countered on the instant, "where did you get the revolver?"

Dick started to answer without thought:

"Why, I grabbed it——" Then, the significance of this crashed on his consciousness, and he checked the words trembling on his lips. His eyes, which had been downcast, lifted and glared on the questioner. "So," he said with swift hostility in his voice, "so, you're trying to trap me, too!" He shrugged his shoulders in a way he had learned abroad. "You! And you talk of friendship. I want none of such friendship."

Demarest, greatly disconcerted, was skilled, nevertheless, in dissembling, and he hid his chagrin perfectly. There was only reproach in his voice as he answered stoutly:

"I am your friend, Dick."

But Burke would be no longer restrained. He had listened with increasing impatience to the diplomatic efforts of the District Attorney, which had ended in total rout. Now, he insisted on employing his own more drastic, and, as he believed, more efficacious, methods. He stood up, and spoke in his most threatening manner.

"You don't want to take us for fools, young man," he said, and his big tones rumbled harshly through the room. "If you shot Griggs in mistake for a burglar, why did you try to hide the fact? Why did you pretend to me that you and your wife were alone in the room—when you had that there with you, eh? Why didn't you call for help? Why didn't you call for the police, as any honest man would naturally under such circumstances?"

The arraignment was severely logical. Dick showed his appreciation of the justice of it in the whitening of his face, nor did he try to answer the charges thus hurled at him.

The father, too, appreciated the gravity of the situation. His face was working, as if toward tears.

"We're trying to save you," he pleaded, tremulously.

Burke persisted in his vehement system of attack. Now, he again brought out the weapon that had done Eddie Griggs to death.

"Where'd you get this gun?" he shouted.

Dick held his tranquil pose.

"I won't talk any more," he answered, simply. "I must see my wife first." His voice became more aggressive. "I want to know what you've done to her."

Burke seized on this opening.

"Did she kill Griggs?" he questioned, roughly.

For once, Dick was startled out of his calm.

"No, no!" he cried, desperately.

Burke followed up his advantage.

"Then, who did?" he demanded, sharply. "Who did?"

Now, however, the young man had regained his self-control. He answered very quietly, but with an air of finality.

"I won't say any more until I've talked with a lawyer whom I can trust." He shot a vindictive glance toward Demarest.

The father intervened with a piteous eagerness.

"Dick, if you know who killed this man, you must speak to protect yourself."

Burke's voice came viciously.

"The gun was found on you. Don't forget that."

"You don't seem to realize the position you're in," the father insisted, despairingly. "Think of me, Dick, my boy. If you won't speak for your own sake, do it for mine."

The face of the young man softened as he met his father's beseeching eyes.

"I'm sorry, Dad," he said, very gently. "But I—well, I can't!"

Again, Burke interposed. His busy brain was working out a new scheme for solving this irritating problem.

"I'm going to give him a little more time to think things over," he said, curtly. He went back to his chair. "Perhaps he'll get to understand the importance of what we've been saying pretty soon." He scowled at Dick. "Now, young man," he went on briskly, "you want to do a lot of quick thinking, and a lot of honest thinking, and, when you're ready to tell the truth, let me know."

He pressed the button on his desk, and, as the doorman appeared, addressed that functionary.

"Dan, have one of the men take him back. You wait outside."

Dick, however, did not move. His voice came with a note of determination.

"I want to know about my wife. Where is she?"

Burke disregarded the question as completely as if it had not been uttered, and went on speaking to the doorman with a suggestion in his words that was effective.

"He's not to speak to any one, you understand." Then he condescended to give his attention to the prisoner. "You'll know all about your wife, young man, when you make up your mind to tell me the truth."

Dick gave no heed to the Inspector's statement. His eyes were fixed on his father, and there was a great tenderness in their depths. And he spoke very softly:

"Dad, I'm sorry!"

The father's gaze met the son's, and the eyes of the two locked. There was no other word spoken. Dick turned, and followed his custodian out of the office in silence. Even after the shutting of the door behind the prisoner, the pause endured for some moments.

Then, at last, Burke spoke to the magnate.

"You see, Mr. Gilder, what we're up against. I can't let him go—yet!"

The father strode across the room in a sudden access of rage.

"He's thinking of that woman," he cried out, in a loud voice. "He's trying to shield her."

"He's a loyal kid, at that," Burke commented, with a grudging admiration. "I'll say that much for him." His expression grew morose, as again he pressed the button on his desk. "And now," he vouchsafed, "I'll show you the difference." Then, as the doorman reappeared, he gave his order: "Dan, have the Turner woman brought up." He regarded the two men with his bristling brows pulled down in a scowl. "I'll have to try a different game with her," he said, thoughtfully. "She sure is one clever little dame. But, if she didn't do it herself, she knows who did, all right." Again, Burke's voice took on its savage note. "And some one's got to pay for killing Griggs. I don't have to explain why to Mr. Demarest, but to you, Mr. Gilder. You see, it's this way: The very foundations of the work done by this department rest on the use of crooks, who are willing to betray their pals for coin. I told you a bit about it last night. Now, you understand, if Griggs's murder goes unpunished, it'll put the fear of God into the heart of every stool-pigeon we employ. And then where'd we be? Tell me that!"

The Inspector next called his stenographer, and gave explicit directions. At the back of the room, behind the desk, were three large windows, which opened on a corridor, and across this was a tier of cells. The stenographer was to take his seat in this corridor, just outside one of the windows. Over the windows, the shades were drawn, so that he would remain invisible to any one within the office, while yet easily able to overhear every word spoken in the room.

When he had completed his instructions to the stenographer, Burke turned to Gilder and Demarest.

"Now, this time," he said energetically, "I'll be the one to do the talking. And get this: Whatever you hear me say, don't you be surprised. Remember, we're dealing with crooks, and, when you're dealing with crooks, you have to use crooked ways."

There was a brief period of silence. Then, the door opened, and Mary Turner entered the office. She walked slowly forward, moving with the smooth strength and grace that were the proof of perfect health and of perfect poise, the correlation of mind and body in exactness. Her form, clearly revealed by the clinging evening dress, was a curving group of graces. The beauty of her face was enhanced, rather than lessened, by the pallor of it, for the fading of the richer colors gave to the fine features an expression more spiritual, made plainer the underlying qualities that her accustomed brilliance might half-conceal. She paid absolutely no attention to the other two in the room, but went straight to the desk, and there halted, gazing with her softly penetrant eyes of deepest violet into the face of the Inspector.

Under that intent scrutiny, Burke felt a challenge, set himself to match craft with craft. He was not likely to undervalue the wits of one who had so often flouted him, who, even now, had placed him in a preposterous predicament by this entanglement over the death of a spy. But he was resolved to use his best skill to disarm her sophistication. His large voice was modulated to kindliness as he spoke in a casual manner.

"I just sent for you to tell you that you're free."

Mary regarded the speaker with an impenetrable expression. Her tones as she spoke were quite as matter-of-fact as his own had been. In them was no wonder, no exultation.

"Then, I can go," she said, simply.

"Sure, you can go," Burke replied, amiably.

Without any delay, yet without any haste, Mary glanced toward Gilder and Demarest, who were watching the scene closely. Her eyes were somehow appraising, but altogether indifferent. Then, she went toward the outer door of the office, still with that almost lackadaisical air.

Burke waited rather impatiently until she had nearly reached the door before he shot his bolt, with a fine assumption of carelessness in the announcement.

"Garson has confessed!"

Mary, who readily enough had already guessed the essential hypocrisy of all this play, turned and confronted the Inspector, and answered without the least trace of fear, but with the firmness of knowledge:

"Oh, no, he hasn't!"

Her attitude exasperated Burke. His voice roared out wrathfully.

"What's the reason he hasn't?"

The music in the tones of the answer was a vocal rebuke.

"Because he didn't do it." She stated the fact as one without a hint of any contradictory possibility.

"Well, he says he did it!" Burke vociferated, still more loudly.

Mary, in her turn, resorted to a bit of finesse, in order to learn whether or not Garson had been arrested. She spoke with a trace of indignation.

"But how could he have done it, when he went——" she began.

The Inspector fell a victim to her superior craft. His question came eagerly.

"Where did he go?"

Mary smiled for the first time since she had been in the room, and in that smile the Inspector realized his defeat in the first passage of this game of intrigue between them.

"You ought to know," she said, sedately, "since you have arrested him, and he has confessed."

Demarest put up a hand to conceal his smile over the police official's chagrin. Gilder, staring always at this woman who had come to be his Nemesis, was marveling over the beauty and verve of the one so hating him as to plan the ruin of his life and his son's.

Burke was frantic over being worsted thus. To gain a diversion, he reverted to his familiar bullying tactics. His question burst raspingly. It was a question that had come to be constant within his brain during the last few hours, one that obsessed him, that fretted him sorely, almost beyond endurance.

"Who shot Griggs?" he shouted.

Mary rested serene in the presence of this violence. Her answer capped the climax of the officer's exasperation.

"My husband shot a burglar," she said, languidly. And then her insolence reached its culmination in a query of her own: "Was his name Griggs?" It was done with splendid art, with a splendid mastery of her own emotions, for, even as she spoke the words, she was remembering those shuddering seconds when she had stood, only a few hours ago, gazing down at the inert bulk that had been a man.

Burke betook himself to another form of attack.

"Oh, you know better than that," he declared, truculently. "You see, we've traced the Maxim silencer. Garson himself bought it up in Hartford."

For the first time, Mary was caught off her guard.

"But he told me——" she began, then became aware of her indiscretion, and checked herself.

Burke seized on her lapse with avidity.

"What did he tell you?" he questioned, eagerly.

Now, Mary had regained her self-command, and she spoke calmly.

"He told me," she said, without a particle of hesitation, "that he had never seen one. Surely, if he had had anything of the sort, he would have shown it to me then."

"Probably he did, too!" Burke rejoined, without the least suspicion that his surly utterance touched the truth exactly. "Now, see here," he went on, trying to make his voice affable, though with small success, for he was excessively irritated by these repeated failures; "I can make it a lot easier for you if you'll talk. Come on, now! Who killed Griggs?"

Mary cast off pretense finally, and spoke malignantly.

"That's for you to find out," she said, sneering.

Burke pressed the button on the desk, and, when the doorman appeared, ordered that the prisoner be returned to her cell.

But Mary stood rebellious, and spoke with a resumption of her cynical scorn.

"I suppose," she said, with a glance of contempt toward Demarest, "that it's useless for me to claim my constitutional rights, and demand to see a lawyer?"

Burke, too, had cast off pretense at last.

"Yes," he agreed, with an evil smirk, "you've guessed it right, the first time."

Mary spoke to the District Attorney.

"I believe," she said, with a new dignity of bearing, "that such is my constitutional right, is it not, Mr. Demarest?"

The lawyer sought no evasion of the issue. For that matter, he was coming to have an increasing respect, even admiration, for this young woman, who endured insult and ignominy with a spirit so sturdy, and met strategem with other strategem better devised. So, now, he made his answer with frank honesty.

"It is your constitutional right, Miss Turner."

Mary turned her clear eyes on the Inspector, and awaited from that official a reply that was not forthcoming. Truth to tell, Burke was far from comfortable under that survey.

"Well, Inspector?" she inquired, at last.

Burke took refuge, as his wont was when too hard pressed, in a mighty bellow.

"The Constitution don't go here!" It was the best he could do, and it shamed him, for he knew its weakness. Again, wrath surged in him, and it surged high. He welcomed the advent of Cassidy, who came hurrying in with a grin of satisfaction on his stolid face.

"Say, Chief," the detective said with animation, in response to Burke's glance of inquiry, "we've got Garson."

Mary's face fell, though the change of expression was almost imperceptible. Only Demarest, a student of much experience, observed the fleeting display of repressed emotion. When the Inspector took thought to look at her, she was as impassive as before. Yet, he was minded to try another ruse in his desire to defeat the intelligence of this woman. To this end, he asked Gilder and the District Attorney to withdraw, while he should have a private conversation with the prisoner. As she listened to his request, Mary smiled again in sphinx-like fashion, and there was still on her lips an expression that caused the official a pang of doubt, when, at last, the two were left alone together, and he darted a surreptitious glance toward her. Nevertheless, he pressed on his device valiantly.

"Now," he said, with a marked softening of manner, "I'm going to be your friend."

"Are you?" Mary's tone was non-committal.

"Yes," Burke declared, heartily. "And I mean it! Give up the truth about young Gilder. I know he shot Griggs, of course. But I'm not taking any stock in that burglar story—not a little bit! No court would, either. What was really back of the killing?" Burke's eyes narrowed cunningly. "Was he jealous of Griggs? Well, that's what he might do then. He's always been a worthless young cub. A rotten deal like this would be about his gait, I guess.... Tell me, now: Why did he shoot Eddie Griggs?"

There was coarseness a-plenty in the Inspector's pretense, but it possessed a solitary fundamental virtue: it played on the heart of the woman whom he questioned, aroused it to wrath in defense of her mate. In a second, all poise fled from this girl whose soul was blossoming in the blest realization that a man loved her purely, unselfishly. Her words came stumblingly in their haste. Her eyes were near to black in their anger.

"He didn't kill him! He didn't kill him!" she fairly hissed. "Why, he's the most wonderful man in the world. You shan't hurt him! Nobody shall hurt him! I'll fight to the end of my life for Dick Gilder!"

Burke was beaming joyously. At last—a long last!—his finesse had won the victory over this woman's subtleties.

"Well, that's just what I thought," he said, with smug content. "And now, then, who did shoot Griggs? We've got every one of the gang. They're all crooks. See here," he went on, with a sudden change to the respectful in his manner, "why don't you start fresh? I'll give you every chance in the world. I'm dead on the level with you this time."

But he was too late. By now, Mary had herself well in hand again, vastly ashamed of the short period of self-betrayal caused by the official's artifice against her heart. As she listened to the Inspector's assurances, the mocking expression of her face was not encouraging to that astute individual, but he persevered manfully.

"Just you wait," he went on cheerfully, "and I'll prove to you that I'm on the level about this, that I'm really your friend.... There was a letter came for you to your apartment. My men brought it down to me. I've read it. Here it is. I'll read it to you!"

He picked up an envelope, which had been lying on the desk, and drew out the single sheet of paper it contained. Mary watched him, wondering much more than her expression revealed over this new development. Then, as she listened, quick interest touched her features to a new life. In her eyes leaped emotions to make or mar a life.

This was the letter:

"I can't go without telling you how sorry I am. There won't never be a time that I won't remember it was me got you sent up, that you did time in my place. I ain't going to forgive myself ever, and I swear I'm going straight always.

"Your true friend,

"HELEN MORRIS."

For once, Burke showed a certain delicacy. When he had finished the reading, he said nothing for a long minute—only, sat with his cunning eyes on the face of the woman who was immobile there before him. And, as he looked on her in her slender elegance of form and gentlewomanly loveliness of face, a loveliness intelligent and refined beyond that of most women, he felt borne in on his consciousness the fact that here was one to be respected. He fought against the impression. It was to him preposterous, for she was one of that underworld against which he was ruthlessly at war. Yet, he could not altogether overcome his instinct toward a half-reverent admiration.... And, as the letter proved, she had been innocent at the outset. She had been the victim of a mistaken justice, made outcast by the law she had never wronged.... His mood of respect was inevitable, since he had some sensibilities, though they were coarsened, and they sensed vaguely the maelstrom of emotions that now swirled in the girl's breast.

To Mary Turner, this was the wonderful hour. In it, the vindication of her innocence was made complete. The story was there recorded in black and white on the page written by Helen Morris. It mattered little—or infinitely much!—that it came too late. She had gained her evil place in the world, was a notorious woman in fact, was even now a prisoner under suspicion of murder. Nevertheless, she felt a thrill of ecstasy over this written document—which it had never occurred to her to wrest from the girl at the time of the oral confession. Now that it had been proffered, the value of it loomed above almost all things else in the world. It proclaimed undeniably the wrong under which she had suffered. She was not the thief the court had adjudged her. "Now, there's nobody here but just you and me. Come on, now—put me wise!"

Mary was again the resourceful woman who was glad to pit her brain against the contriving of those who fought her. So, at this moment, she seemed pliant to the will of the man who urged her thus cunningly. Her quick glance around the office was of a sort to delude the Inspector into a belief that she was yielding to his lure.

"Are you sure no one will ever know?" she asked, timorously.

"Nobody but you and me," Burke declared, all agog with anticipation of victory at last. "I give you my word!"

Mary met the gaze of the Inspector fully. In the same instant, she flashed on him a smile that was dazzling, the smile of a woman triumphant in her mastery of the situation. Her face was radiant, luminous with honest mirth. There was something simple and genuine in her beauty that thrilled the man before her, the man trying so vindictively to trap her to her own undoing. For all his grossness, Burke was of shrewd perceptions, and somewhere, half-submerged under the sordid nature of his calling, was a love of things esthetic, a responsiveness to the appeals of beauty. Now, as his glance searched the face of the girl who was bubbling with mirth, he experienced an odd warming of his heart under the spell of her loveliness—a loveliness wholly feminine, pervasive, wholesome. But, too, his soul shook in a premonition of catastrophe, for there was mischief in the beaming eyes of softest violet. There was a demon of mockery playing in the curves of the scarlet lips, as she smiled so winsomely.

All his apprehensions were verified by her utterance. It came in a most casual voice, despite the dancing delight in her face. The tones were drawled in the matter-of-fact fashion of statement that leads a listener to answer without heed to the exact import of the question, unless very alert, indeed.... This is what she said in that so-casual voice:

"I'm not speaking loud enough, am I, stenographer?"

And that industrious writer of shorthand notes, absorbed in his task, answered instantly from his hidden place in the corridor.

"No, ma'am, not quite."

Mary laughed aloud, while Burke sat dumfounded. She rose swiftly, and went to the nearest window, and with a pull at the cord sent the shade flying upward. For seconds, there was revealed the busy stenographer, bent over his pad. Then, the noise of the ascending shade, which had been hammering on his consciousness, penetrated, and he looked up. Realization came, as he beheld the woman laughing at him through the window. Consternation beset him. He knew that, somehow, he had bungled fatally. A groan of distress burst from him, and he fled the place in ignominious rout.

There was another whose spirit was equally desirous of flight—Burke! Yet once again, he was beaten at his own game, his cunning made of no avail against the clever interpretation of this woman whom he assailed. He had no defense to offer. He did not care to meet her gaze just then, since he was learning to respect her as one wronged, where he had regarded her hitherto merely as of the flotsam and jetsam of the criminal class. So, he avoided her eyes as she stood by the window regarding him quizzically. In a panic of confusion quite new to him in his years of experience, he pressed the button on his desk.

The doorman appeared with that automatic precision which made him valuable in his position, and the Inspector hailed the ready presence with a feeling of profound relief.

"Dan, take her back!" he said, feebly.

Mary was smiling still as she went to the door. But she could not resist the impulse toward retort.

"Oh, yes," she said, suavely; "you were right on the level with me, weren't you, Burke? Nobody here but you and me!" The words came in a sing-song of mockery.

The Inspector had nothing in the way of answer—only, sat motionless until the door closed after her. Then, left alone, his sole audible comment was a single word—one he had learned, perhaps, from Aggie Lynch:

"Hell!"



CHAPTER XXIII. THE CONFESSION.

Burke was a persistent man, and he had set himself to getting the murderer of Griggs. Foiled in his efforts thus far by the opposition of Mary, he now gave himself over to careful thought as to a means of procedure that might offer the best possibilities of success. His beetling brows were drawn in a frown of perplexity for a full quarter of an hour, while he rested motionless in his chair, an unlighted cigar between his lips. Then, at last, his face cleared; a grin of satisfaction twisted his heavy mouth, and he smote the desk joyously.

"It's a cinch it'll get 'im!" he rumbled, in glee.

He pressed the button-call, and ordered the doorman to send in Cassidy. When the detective appeared a minute later, he went directly to his subject with a straightforward energy usual to him in his work.

"Does Garson know we've arrested the Turner girl and young Gilder?" And, when he had been answered in the negative: "Or that we've got Chicago Red and Dacey here?"

"No," Cassidy replied. "He hasn't been spoken to since we made the collar.... He seems worried," the detective volunteered.

Burke's broad jowls shook from the force with which he snapped his jaws together.

"He'll be more worried before I get through with him!" he growled. He regarded Cassidy speculatively. "Do you remember the Third Degree Inspector Burns worked on McGloin? Well," he went on, as the detective nodded assent, "that's what I'm going to do to Garson. He's got imagination, that crook! The things he don't know about are the things he's afraid of. After he gets in here, I want you to take his pals one after the other, and lock them up in the cells there in the corridor. The shades on the corridor windows here will be up, and Garson will see them taken in. The fact of their being there will set his imagination to working overtime, all right."

Burke reflected for a moment, and then issued the final directions for the execution of his latest plot.

"When you get the buzzer from me, you have young Gilder and the Turner woman sent in. Then, after a while, you'll get another buzzer. When you hear that, come right in here, and tell me that the gang has squealed. I'll do the rest. Bring Garson here in just five minutes.... Tell Dan to come in."

As the detective went out, the doorman promptly entered, and thereat Burke proceeded with the further instructions necessary to the carrying out of his scheme.

"Take the chairs out of the office, Dan," he directed, "except mine and one other—that one!" He indicated a chair standing a little way from one end of his desk. "Now, have all the shades up." He chuckled as he added: "That Turner woman saved you the trouble with one."

As the doorman went out after having fulfilled these commands, the Inspector lighted the cigar which he had retained still in his mouth, and then seated himself in the chair that was set partly facing the windows opening on the corridor. He smiled with anticipatory triumph as he made sure that the whole length of the corridor with the barred doors of the cells was plainly visible to one sitting thus. With a final glance about to make certain that all was in readiness, he returned to his chair, and, when the door opened, he was, to all appearances, busily engaged in writing.

"Here's Garson, Chief," Cassidy announced.

"Hello, Joe!" Burke exclaimed, with a seeming of careless friendliness, as the detective went out, and Garson stood motionless just within the door.

"Sit down, a minute, won't you?" the Inspector continued, affably. He did not look up from his writing as he spoke.

Garson's usually strong face was showing weak with fear. His chin, which was commonly very firm, moved a little from uneasy twitchings of his lips. His clear eyes were slightly clouded to a look of apprehension, as they roved the room furtively. He made no answer to the Inspector's greeting for a few moments, but remained standing without movement, poised alertly as if sensing some concealed peril. Finally, however, his anxiety found expression in words. His tone was pregnant with alarm, though he strove to make it merely complaining.

"Say, what am I arrested for?" he protested. "I ain't done anything."

Even now, Burke did not look up, and his pen continued to hurry over the paper.

"Who told you you were arrested?" he remarked, cheerfully, in his blandest voice.

Garson uttered an ejaculation of disgust.

"I don't have to be told," he retorted, huffily. "I'm no college president, but, when a cop grabs me and brings me down here, I've got sense enough to know I'm pinched."

The Inspector did not interrupt his work, but answered with the utmost good nature.

"Is that what they did to you, Joe? I'll have to speak to Cassidy about that. Now, just you sit down, Joe, won't you? I want to have a little talk with you. I'll be through here in a second." He went on with the writing.

Garson moved forward slightly, to the single chair near the end of the desk, and there seated himself mechanically. His face thus was turned toward the windows that gave on the corridor, and his eyes grew yet more clouded as they rested on the grim doors of the cells. He writhed in his chair, and his gaze jumped from the cells to the impassive figure of the man at the desk. Now, the forger's nervousness increased momently it swept beyond his control. Of a sudden, he sprang up, and stepped close to the Inspector.

"Say," he said, in a husky voice, "I'd like—I'd like to have a lawyer."

"What's the matter with you, Joe?" the Inspector returned, always with that imperturbable air, and without raising his head from the work that so engrossed his attention. "You know, you're not arrested, Joe. Maybe, you never will be. Now, for the love of Mike, keep still, and let me finish this letter."

Slowly, very hesitatingly, Garson went back to the chair, and sank down on it in a limp attitude of dejection wholly unlike his customary postures of strength. Again, his fear-fascinated eyes went to the row of cells that stood silently menacing on the other side of the corridor beyond the windows. His face was tinged with gray. A physical sickness was creeping stealthily on him, as his thoughts held insistently to the catastrophe that threatened. His intelligence was too keen to permit a belief that Burke's manner of almost fulsome kindliness hid nothing ominous—ominous with a hint of death for him in return for the death he had wrought.

Then, terror crystallized. His eyes were caught by a figure, the figure of Cassidy, advancing there in the corridor. And with the detective went a man whose gait was slinking, craven. A cell-door swung open, the prisoner stepped within, the door clanged to, the bolts shot into their sockets noisily.

Garson sat huddled, stricken—for he had recognized the victim thrust into the cell before his eyes.... It was Dacey, one of his own cronies in crime—Dacey, who, the night before, had seen him kill Eddie Griggs. There was something concretely sinister to Garson in this fact of Dacey's presence there in the cell.

Of a sudden, the forger cried out raucously:

"Say, Inspector, if you've got anything on me, I—I would——" The cry dropped into unintelligible mumblings.

Burke retained his manner of serene indifference to the other's agitation. Still, his pen hurried over the paper; and he did not trouble to look up as he expostulated, half-banteringly.

"Now, now! What's the matter with you, Joe? I told you that I wanted to ask you a few questions. That's all."

Garson leaped to his feet again resolutely, then faltered, and ultimately fell back into the chair with a groan, as the Inspector went on speaking.

"Now, Joe, sit down, and keep still, I tell you, and let me get through with this job. It won't take me more than a minute more."

But, after a moment, Garson's emotion forced hint to another appeal.

"Say, Inspector——" he began.

Then, abruptly, he was silent, his mouth still open to utter the words that were now held back by horror. Again, he saw the detective walking forward, out there in the corridor. And with him, as before, was a second figure, which advanced slinkingly. Garson leaned forward in his chair, his head thrust out, watching in rigid suspense. Again, even as before, the door swung wide, the prisoner slipped within, the door clanged shut, the bolts clattered noisily into their sockets.

And, in the watcher, terror grew—for he had seen the face of Chicago Red, another of his pals, another who had seen him kill Griggs. For a time that seemed to him long ages of misery, Garson sat staring dazedly at the closed doors of the tier of cells. The peril about him was growing—growing, and it was a deadly peril! At last, he licked his dry lips, and his voice broke in a throaty whisper.

"Say, Inspector, if you've got anything against me, why——"

"Who said there was anything against you, Joe?" Burke rejoined, in a voice that was genially chiding. "What's the matter with you to-day, Joe? You seem nervous." Still, the official kept on with his writing.

"No, I ain't nervous," Garson cried, with a feverish effort to appear calm. "Why, what makes you think that? But this ain't exactly the place you'd pick out as a pleasant one to spend the morning." He was silent for a little, trying with all his strength to regain his self-control, but with small success.

"Could I ask you a question?" he demanded finally, with more firmness in his voice.

"What is it?" Burke said.

Garson cleared his throat with difficulty, and his voice was thick.

"I was just going to say—" he began. Then, he hesitated, and was silent, at a loss.

"Well, what is it, Joe?" the Inspector prompted.

"I was going to say—that is—well, if it's anything about Mary Turner, I don't know a thing—not a thing!"

It was the thought of possible peril to her that now, in an instant, had caused him to forget his own mortal danger. Where, before, he had been shuddering over thoughts of the death-house cell that might be awaiting him, he now had concern only for the safety of the woman he cherished. And there was a great grief in his soul; for it was borne in on him that his own folly, in disobedience to her command, had led up to the murder of Griggs—and to all that might come of the crime. How could he ever make amends to her? At least, he could be brave here, for her sake, if not for his own.

Burke believed that his opportunity was come.

"What made you think I wanted to know anything about her?" he questioned.

"Oh, I can't exactly say," Garson replied carelessly, in an attempt to dissimulate his agitation. "You were up to the house, you know. Don't you see?"

"I did want to see her, that's a fact," Burke admitted. He kept on with his writing, his head bent low. "But she wasn't at her flat. I guess she must have taken my advice, and skipped out. Clever girl, that!"

Garson contrived to present an aspect of comparative indifference.

"Yes," he agreed. "I was thinking of going West, myself," he ventured.

"Oh, were you?" Burke exclaimed; and, now, there was a new note in his voice. His hand slipped into the pocket where was the pistol, and clutched it. He stared at Garson fiercely, and spoke with a rush of the words:

"Why did you kill Eddie Griggs?"

"I didn't kill him!" The reply was quick enough, but it came weakly. Again, Garson was forced to wet his lips with a dry tongue, and to swallow painfully. "I tell you, I didn't kill him!" he repeated at last, with more force.

Burke sneered his disbelief.

"You killed him last night—with this!" he cried, viciously. On the instant, the pistol leaped into view, pointed straight at Garson. "Why?" the Inspector shouted. "Come on, now! Why?"

"I didn't, I tell you!" Garson was growing stronger, since at last the crisis was upon him. He got to his feet with lithe swiftness of movement, and sprang close to the desk. He bent his head forward challengingly, to meet the glare of his accuser's eyes. There was no flinching in his own steely stare. His nerves had ceased their jangling under the tautening of necessity.

"You did!" Burke vociferated. He put his whole will into the assertion of guilt, to batter down the man's resistance. "You did, I tell you! You did!"

Garson leaned still further forward, until his face was almost level with the Inspector's. His eyes were unclouded now, were blazing. His voice came resonant in its denial. The entire pose of him was intrepid, dauntless.

"And I tell you, I didn't!"

There passed many seconds, while the two men battled in silence, will warring against will.... In the end, it was the murderer who triumphed.

Suddenly, Burke dropped the pistol into his pocket, and lolled back in his chair. His gaze fell away from the man confronting him. In the same instant, the rigidity of Garson's form relaxed, and he straightened slowly. A tide of secret joy swept through him, as he realized his victory. But his outward expression remained unchanged.

"Oh, well," Burke exclaimed amiably, "I didn't really think you did, but I wasn't sure, so I had to take a chance. You understand, don't you, Joe?"

"Sure, I understand," Garson replied, with an amiability equal to the Inspector's own.

Burke's manner continued very amicable as he went on speaking.

"You see, Joe, anyhow, we've got the right party safe enough. You can bet on that!"

Garson resisted the lure.

"If you don't want me——" he began suggestively; and he turned toward the door to the outer hall. "Why, if you don't want me, I'll—get along."

"Oh, what's the hurry, Joe?" Burke retorted, with the effect of stopping the other short. He pressed the buzzer as the agreed signal to Cassidy. "Where did you say Mary Turner was last night?"

At the question, all Garson's fears for the woman rushed back on him with appalling force. Of what avail his safety, if she were still in peril?

"I don't know where she was," he exclaimed, doubtfully. He realized his blunder even as the words left his lips, and sought to correct it as best he might. "Why, yes, I do, too," he went on, as if assailed by sudden memory. "I dropped into her place kind of late, and they said she'd gone to bed—headache, I guess.... Yes, she was home, of course. She didn't go out of the house, all night." His insistence on the point was of itself suspicious, but eagerness to protect her stultified his wits.

Burke sat grim and silent, offering no comment on the lie.

"Know anything about young Gilder?" he demanded. "Happen to know where he is now?" He arose and came around the desk, so that he stood close to Garson, at whom he glowered.

"Not a thing!" was the earnest answer. But the speaker's fear rose swiftly, for the linking of these names was significant—frightfully significant!

The inner door opened, and Mary Turner entered the office. Garson with difficulty suppressed the cry of distress that rose to his lips. For a few moments, the silence was unbroken. Then, presently, Burke, by a gesture, directed the girl to advance toward the center of the room. As she obeyed, he himself went a little toward the door, and, when it opened again, and Dick Gilder appeared, he interposed to check the young man's rush forward as his gaze fell on his bride, who stood regarding him with sad eyes.

Garson stared mutely at the burly man in uniform who held their destinies in the hollow of a hand. His lips parted as if he were about to speak. Then, he bade defiance to the impulse. He deemed it safer for all that he should say nothing—now!... And it is very easy to say a word too many. And that one may be a word never to be unsaid—or gainsaid.

Then, while still that curious, dynamic silence endured, Cassidy came briskly into the office. By some magic of duty, he had contrived to give his usually hebetudinous features an expression of enthusiasm.

"Say, Chief," the detective said rapidly, "they've squealed!"

Burke regarded his aide with an air intolerably triumphant. His voice came smug:

"Squealed, eh?" His glance ran over Garson for a second, then made its inquisition of Mary and of Dick Gilder. He did not give a look to Cassidy as he put his question. "Do they tell the same story?" And then, when the detective had answered in the affirmative, he went on speaking in tones ponderous with self-complacency; and, now, his eyes held sharply, craftily, on the woman.

"I was right then, after all—right, all the time! Good enough!" Of a sudden, his voice boomed somberly. "Mary Turner, I want you for the murder of——"

Garson's rush halted the sentence. He had leaped forward. His face was rigid. He broke on the Inspector's words with a gesture of fury. His voice came in a hiss:

"That's a damned lie!... I did it!"



CHAPTER XXIV. ANGUISH AND BLISS.

Joe Garson had shouted his confession without a second of reflection. But the result must have been the same had he taken years of thought. Between him and her as the victim of the law, there could be no hesitation for choice. Indeed, just now, he had no heed to his own fate. The prime necessity was to save her, Mary, from the toils of the law that were closing around her. For himself, in the days to come, there would be a ghastly dread, but there would never be regret over the cost of saving her. Perhaps, some other he might have let suffer in his stead—not her! Even, had he been innocent, and she guilty of the crime, he would still have taken the burden of it on his own shoulders. He had saved her from the waters—he would save her until the end, as far as the power in him might lie. It was thus that, with the primitive directness of his reverential love for the girl, he counted no sacrifice too great in her behalf. Joe Garson was not a good man, at the world esteems goodness. On the contrary, he was distinctly an evil one, a menace to the society on which he preyed constantly. But his good qualities, if few, were of the strongest fiber, rooted in the deeps of him. He loathed treachery. His one guiltiness in this respect had been, curiously enough, toward Mary herself, in the scheme of the burglary, which she had forbidden. But, in the last analysis, here his deceit had been designed to bring affluence to her. It was his abhorrence of treachery among pals that had driven him to the murder of the stool-pigeon in a fit of ungovernable passion. He might have stayed his hand then, but for the gusty rage that swept him on to the crime. None the less, had he spared the man, his hatred of the betrayer would have been the same.... And the other virtue of Joe Garson was the complement of this—his own loyalty, a loyalty that made him forget self utterly where he loved. The one woman who had ever filled his heart was Mary, and for her his life were not too much to give.

The suddenness of it all held Mary voiceless for long seconds. She was frozen with horror of the event.

When, at last, words came, they were a frantic prayer of protest.

"No, Joe! No! Don't talk—don't talk!"

Burke, immensely gratified, went nimbly to his chair, and thence surveyed the agitated group with grisly pleasure.

"Joe has talked," he said, significantly.

Mary, shaken as she was by the fact of Garson's confession, nevertheless retained her presence of mind sufficiently to resist with all her strength.

"He did it to protect me," she stated, earnestly.

The Inspector disdained such futile argument. As the doorman appeared in answer to the buzzer, he directed that the stenographer be summoned at once.

"We'll have the confession in due form," he remarked, gazing pleasedly on the three before him.

"He's not going to confess," Mary insisted, with spirit.

But Burke was not in the least impressed. He disregarded her completely, and spoke mechanically to Garson the formal warning required by the law.

"You are hereby cautioned that anything you say may be used against you." Then, as the stenographer entered, he went on with lively interest. "Now, Joe!"

Yet once again, Mary protested, a little wildly.

"Don't speak, Joe! Don't say a word till we can get a lawyer for you!"

The man met her pleading eyes steadily, and shook his head in refusal.

"It's no use, my girl," Burke broke in, harshly. "I told you I'd get you. I'm going to try you and Garson, and the whole gang for murder—yes, every one of you.... And you, Gilder," he continued, lowering on the young man who had defied him so obstinately, "you'll go to the House of Detention as a material witness." He turned his gaze to Garson again, and spoke authoritatively: "Come on now, Joe!"

Garson went a step toward the desk, and spoke decisively.

"If I come through, you'll let her go—and him?" he added as an afterthought, with a nod toward Dick Gilder.

"Oh, Joe, don't!" Mary cried, bitterly. "We'll spend every dollar we can raise to save you!"

"Now, it's no use," the Inspector complained. "You're only wasting time. He's said that he did it. That's all there is to it. Now that we're sure he's our man, he hasn't got a chance in the world."

"Well, how about it?" Garson demanded, savagely. "Do they go clear, if I come through?"

"We'll get the best lawyers in the country," Mary persisted, desperately. "We'll save you, Joe—we'll save you!"

Garson regarded the distraught girl with wistful eyes. But there was no trace of yielding in his voice as he replied, though he spoke very sorrowfully.

"No, you can't help me," he said, simply. "My time has come, Mary.... And I can save you a lot of trouble."

"He's right there," Burke ejaculated. "We've got him cold. So, what's the use of dragging you two into it?"

"Then, they go clear?" Garson exclaimed, eagerly. "They ain't even to be called as witnesses?"

Burke nodded assent.

"You're on!" he agreed.

"Then, here goes!" Garson cried; and he looked expectantly toward the stenographer.

The strain of it all was sapping the will of the girl, who saw the man she so greatly esteemed for his service to her and his devotion about to condemn himself to death. She grew half-hysterical. Her words came confusedly:

"No, Joe! No, no, no!"

Again, Garson shook his head in absolute refusal of her plea.

"There's no other way out," he declared, wearily. "I'm going through with it." He straightened a little, and again looked at the stenographer. His voice came quietly, without any tremulousnesss.

"My name is Joe Garson."

"Alias?" Burke suggested.

"Alias nothing!" came the sharp retort. "Garson's my monaker. I shot English Eddie, because he was a skunk, and a stool-pigeon, and he got just what was coming to him." Vituperation beyond the mere words beat in his voice now.

Burke twisted uneasily in his chair.

"Now, now!" he objected, severely. "We can't take a confession like that."

Garson shook his head—spoke with fiercer hatred, "because he was a skunk, and a stool-pigeon," he repeated. "Have you got it?" And then, as the stenographer nodded assent, he went on, less violently: "I croaked him just as he was going to call the bulls with a police-whistle. I used a gun with smokeless powder. It had a Maxim silencer on it, so that it didn't make any noise."

Garson paused, and the set despair of his features lightened a little. Into his voice came a tone of exultation indescribably ghastly. It was born of the eternal egotism of the criminal, fattening vanity in gloating over his ingenuity for evil. Garson, despite his two great virtues, had the vices of his class. Now, he stared at Burke with a quizzical grin crooking his lips.

"Say," he exclaimed, "I'll bet it's the first time a guy was ever croaked with one of them things! Ain't it?"

The Inspector nodded affirmation. There was sincere admiration in his expression, for he was ready at all times to respect the personal abilities of the criminals against whom he waged relentless war.

"That's right, Joe!" he said, with perceptible enthusiasm.

"Some class to that, eh?" Garson demanded, still with that gruesome air of boasting. "I got the gun, and the Maxim-silencer thing, off a fence in Boston," he explained. "Say, that thing cost me sixty dollars, and it's worth every cent of the money.... Why, they'll remember me as the first to spring one of them things, won't they?"

"They sure will, Joe!" the Inspector conceded.

"Nobody knew I had it," Garson continued, dropping his braggart manner abruptly.

At the words, Mary started, and her lips moved as if she were about to speak.

Garson, intent on her always, though he seemed to look only at Burke, observed the effect on her, and repeated his words swiftly, with a warning emphasis that gave the girl pause.

"Nobody knew I had it—nobody in the world!" he declared. "And nobody had anything to do with the killing but me."

Burke put a question that was troubling him much, concerning the motive that lay behind the shooting of Griggs.

"Was there any bad feeling between you and Eddie Griggs?"

Garson's reply was explicit.

"Never till that very minute. Then, I learned the truth about what he'd framed up with you." The speaker's voice reverted to its former fierceness in recollection of the treachery of one whom he had trusted.

"He was a stool-pigeon, and I hated his guts! That's all," he concluded, with brutal candor.

The Inspector moved restlessly in his chair. He had only detestation for the slain man, yet there was something morbidly distasteful in the thought that he himself had contrived the situation which had resulted in the murder of his confederate. It was only by an effort that he shook off the vague feeling of guilt.

"Nothing else to say?" he inquired.

Garson reflected for a few seconds, then made a gesture of negation.

"Nothing else," he declared. "I croaked him, and I'm glad I done it. He was a skunk. That's all, and it's enough. And it's all true, so help me God!"

The Inspector nodded dismissal to the stenographer, with an air of relief.

"That's all, Williams," he said, heavily. "He'll sign it as soon as you've transcribed the notes."

Then, as the stenographer left the room, Burke turned his gaze on the woman, who stood there in a posture of complete dejection, her white, anguished face downcast. There was triumph in the Inspector's voice as he addressed her, for his professional pride was full-fed by this victory over his foes. But there was, too, an undertone of a feeling softer than pride, more generous, something akin to real commiseration for this unhappy girl who drooped before him, suffering so poignantly in the knowledge of the fate that awaited the man who had saved her, who had loved her so unselfishly.

"Young woman," Burke said briskly, "it's just like I told you. You can't beat the law. Garson thought he could—and now——!" He broke off, with a wave of his hand toward the man who had just sentenced himself to death in the electric-chair.

"That's right," Garson agreed, with somber intensity. His eyes were grown clouded again now, and his voice dragged leaden. "That's right, Mary," he repeated dully, after a little pause. "You can't beat the law!"

There followed a period of silence, in which great emotions were vibrant from heart to heart. Garson was thinking of Mary, and, with the thought, into his misery crept a little comfort. At least, she would go free. That had been in the bargain with Burke. And there was the boy, too. His eyes shot a single swift glance toward Dick Gilder, and his satisfaction increased as he noted the alert poise of the young man's body, the strained expression of the strong face, the gaze of absorbed yearning with which he regarded Mary. There could be no doubt concerning the depth of the lad's love for the girl. Moreover, there were manly qualities in him to work out all things needful for her protection through life. Already, he had proved his devotion, and that abundantly, his unswerving fidelity to her, and the force within him that made these worthy in some measure of her.

Garson felt no least pang of jealousy. Though he loved the woman with the single love of his life, he had never, somehow, hoped aught for himself. There was even something almost of the paternal in the purity of his love, as if, indeed, by the fact of restoring her to life he had taken on himself the responsibility of a parent. He knew that the boy worshiped her, would do his best for her, that this best would suffice for her happiness in time. Garson, with the instinct of love, guessed that Mary had in truth given her heart all unaware to the husband whom she had first lured only for the lust of revenge. Garson nodded his head in a melancholy satisfaction. His life was done: hers was just beginning, now.... But she would remember him—oh, yes, always! Mary was loyal.

The man checked the trend of his thoughts by a mighty effort of will. He must not grow maudlin here. He spoke again to Mary, with a certain dignity.

"No, you can't beat the law!" He hesitated a little, then went on, with a certain curious embarrassment. "And this same old law says a woman must stick to her man."

The girl's eyes met his with passionate sorrow in their misty deeps. Garson gave a significant glance toward Dick Gilder, then his gaze returned to her. There was a smoldering despair in that look. There were, as well, an entreaty and a command.

"So," he went on, "you must go along with him, Mary.... Won't you? It's the best thing to do."

The girl could not answer. There was a clutch on her throat just then, which would not relax at the call of her will.

The tension of a moment grew, became pervasive. Burke, accustomed as he was to scenes of dramatic violence, now experienced an altogether unfamiliar thrill. As for Garson, once again the surge of feeling threatened to overwhelm his self-control. He must not break down! For Mary's sake, he must show himself stoical, quite undisturbed in this supreme hour.

Of a sudden, an inspiration came to him, a means to snap the tension, to create a diversion wholly efficacious. He would turn to his boasting again, would call upon his vanity, which he knew well as his chief foible, and make it serve as the foil against his love. He strove manfully to throw off the softer mood. In a measure, at least, he won the fight—though always, under the rush of this vaunting, there throbbed the anguish of his heart.

"You want to cut out worrying about me," he counseled, bravely. "Why, I ain't worrying any, myself—not a little bit! You see, it's something new I've pulled off. Nobody ever put over anything like it before."

He faced Burke with a grin of gloating again.

"I'll bet there'll be a lot of stuff in the newspapers about this, and my picture, too, in most of 'em! What?"

The man's manner imposed on Burke, though Mary felt the torment that his vainglorying was meant to mask.

"Say," Garson continued to the Inspector, "if the reporters want any pictures of me, could I have some new ones taken? The one you've got of me in the Gallery is over ten years old. I've taken off my beard since then. Can I have a new one?" He put the question with an eagerness that seemed all sincere.

Burke answered with a fine feeling of generosity.

"Sure, you can, Joe! I'll send you up to the Gallery right now."

"Immense!" Garson cried, boisterously. He moved toward Dick Gilder, walking with a faint suggestion of swagger to cover the nervous tremor that had seized him.

"So long, young fellow!" he exclaimed, and held out his hand. "You've been on the square, and I guess you always will be."

Dick had no scruple in clasping that extended hand very warmly in his own. He had no feeling of repulsion against this man who had committed a murder in his presence. Though he did not quite understand the other's heart, his instinct as a lover taught him much, so that he pitied profoundly—and respected, too.

"We'll do what we can for you," he said, simply.

"That's all right," Garson replied, with such carelessness of manner as he could contrive. Then, at last, he turned to Mary. This parting must be bitter, and he braced himself with all the vigors of his will to combat the weakness that leaped from his soul.

As he came near, the girl could hold herself in leash no longer. She threw herself on his breast. Her arms wreathed about his neck. Great sobs racked her.

"Oh, Joe, Joe!" The gasping cry was of utter despair.

Garson's trembling hand patted the girl's shoulder very softly, a caress of infinite tenderness.

"That's all right!" he murmured, huskily. "That's all right, Mary!" There was a short silence; and then he went on speaking, more firmly. "You know, he'll look after you."

He would have said more, but he could not. It seemed to him that the sobs of the girl caught in his own throat. Yet, presently, he strove once again, with every reserve of his strength; and, finally, he so far mastered himself that he could speak calmly. The words were uttered with a subtle renunciation that was this man's religion.

"Yes, he'll take care of you. Why, I'd like to see the two of you with about three kiddies playing round the house."

He looked up over the girl's shoulder, and beckoned with his head to Dick, who came forward at the summons.

"Take good care of her, won't you?"

He disengaged himself gently from the girl's embrace, and set her within the arms of her husband, where she rested quietly, as if unable to fight longer against fate's decree.

"Well, so long!"

He dared not utter another word, but turned blindly, and went, stumbling a little, toward the doorman, who had appeared in answer to the Inspector's call.

"To the Gallery," Burke ordered, curtly.

Garson went on without ever a glance back.... His strength was at an end.

* * * * *

There was a long silence in the room after Garson's passing. It was broken, at last, by the Inspector, who got up from his chair, and advanced toward the husband and wife. In his hand, he carried a sheet of paper, roughly scrawled. As he stopped before the two, and cleared his throat, Mary withdrew herself from Dick's arms, and regarded the official with brooding eyes from out her white face. Something strange in her enemy's expression caught her attention, something that set new hopes alive within her in a fashion wholly inexplicable, so that she waited with a sudden, breathless eagerness.

Burke extended the sheet of paper to the husband.

"There's a document," he said gruffly. "It's a letter from one Helen Morris, in which she sets forth the interesting fact that she pulled off a theft in the Emporium, for which your Mrs. Gilder here did time. You know, your father got your Mrs. Gilder sent up for three years for that same job—which she didn't do! That's why she had such a grudge against your father, and against the law, too!"

THE END