"You--you were at Mrs. Paul Gates' just a week ago, and you gave your
specialties there?"
"Yes--yes, what is it you want?"
He was a little man, but very muscular. I could note the play of his
muscles even in the slight motion he made as he turned his body so as
to get between me and the audience, while he leaned toward me, watching
me intently with his small, quick, blue eyes.
"We don't want to make any scene here," he said very low. "We want to
do it up as quietly as we can. There might be some mistake, you know,
and then you'd be sorry. So should we. I hope you'll be reasonable
and it'll be all the better for you because--"
"What are you talk--what--" I looked from him to the other fellow
behind us.
He leaned a bit farther forward then, and pulling his coat partly open,
he showed me a detective's badge. And the other man quickly did the
same.
I sat back in my chair. The fat star on the stage, with her big mouth
and big baby-face, was doing a cake-walk up and down close to the
footlights, yelling the chorus of her song.
I'll never mimic that song, Mag, although I can see her and hear it as
plain as though I'd listened and watched her all my life. But there's
no fun in it for me. I hate the very bars the orchestra plays before
she begins to sing. I can't bear even to think of the words. The
whole of it is full of horrible things--it smells of the jail--it looks
like stripes--it ...
"You're not going to faint?" asked the man, moving closer to me.
"Me? I never fainted in my life... Where is he now--Tom Dorgan?"
"Tom Dorgan!"
"Yes. I was sure I saw him sail, but, of course, I was mistaken. He
has sent you after me, has he? I can hardly believe it of
Tom--even--even yet."
"I don't know anything that connects you with Dorgan. If he was in
with you on this, you'd better remember, before you say anything more,
that it'll all be used against you."
The curtain had gone down and gone up again. I was watching the star.
She has such a boyish way of nodding her head, instead of bowing, after
she waddles out to the center; and every time she wipes her lips with
her lace handkerchief, as though she'd just taken one of the cocktails
she makes in the play with all the skill of a bartender. I found
myself doing the same thing--wiping my lips with that very same
gesture, as though I had a fat, bare forearm like a rolling-pin--when
all at once the thought came to me: "You needn't bother, Nancy. It's
all up. You won't have any use for it all."
"Just what is the charge?" I asked, turning to the man beside me.
"Stealing a purse containing three hundred dollars from Mrs. Paul
Gates' house on the night of April twenty-seventh."
"What!"
It was Obermuller. He had pushed the curtains aside; the crashing of
the orchestra had prevented our hearing the clatter of the rings. He
had pushed by the man standing there, had come in and--he had heard.
"Nance!" he cried. "I don't believe a word of it." He turned in his
quick way to the men. "What are your orders?"
"To take her to her flat and search it."
Obermuller came over to me then, and took my hand for a minute.
"It's a pity they don't know about the Gray rose diamond," he
whispered, helping me on with my jacket. "They'd see how silly this
little three-hundred dollar business is.... Brace up, Nance Olden!"
Oh, Mag, Mag, to hear a man like that talk to you as though you were
his kind, when you have the feel of the coarse prison stripes between
your dry, shaking fingers, and the close prison smell is already
poisoning your nostrils!
"I don't see--" my voice shook--"how you can believe--in me."
"Don't you?" he laughed. "That's easy. You've got brains, Nance, and
the most imbecile thing you could do just now, when your foot is
already on the ladder, would be just this--to get off in order to pick
up a trinket out of the mud, when there's a fortune up at the top
waiting for you. Clever people don't do asinine things. And other
clever people know that they don't. You're clever, but so am I--in my
weak, small way. Come along, little girl."
He pulled my hand in his arm and we walked out, followed by the two men.
Oh, no! It was all very quiet and looked just like a little theater
party that had an early supper engagement. Obermuller nodded to the
manager out in the deserted lobby, who stopped us and asked me what I
thought of the star.
You'll think me mad, Mag. Those fellows with the badges were sure I
was, but Obermuller's eyes only twinkled, and the manager's grin grew
broad when, catching up the end of my skirt and cake-walking up and
down, I sang under my breath that coon-song that was trailing over and
over through my head.
"Bravo! bravo!" whispered the manager, hoarsely, clapping his hands
softly.
I gave one of those quick, funny, boyish nods the star inside affects
and wiped my lips with my handkerchief.
That brought down my house. Even the biggest fellow with the badge
giggled recognizingly, and then put his hand quickly in front of his
mouth and tried to look severe and official.
The color had come back to Obermuller's face; it was worth dancing
for--that.
"Be patient, Mag; let me tell it my way."
There wasn't room in the coupe waiting out in front for more than two.
So Obermuller couldn't come in it. But he put me in--Mag, dear, dear
Mag--he put me in as if I was a lady--not like Gray; a real one. A
thing like that counts when two detectives are watching. It counted
afterward in the way they treated me.
The big man climbed up on the seat with the driver. The blue-eyed
fellow got in and sat beside me, closing the door.
"I'll be out there almost as soon as you are," Obermuller said,
standing a moment beside the lowered window.
"You good fellow!" I said, and then, trying to laugh: "I'll do as much
for you some day."
He shook his fist laughingly at me, and I waved my hand as we drove of.
"You know, Miss, there may be some mistake about this," said the man
next to me, "and--"
"Yes, there may be. In fact, there is."
"I'm sure I'll be very glad if it is a mistake. They do happen--though
not often. You spoke of Dorgan--"
"Did I?"
"Yes, Tom Dorgan, who busted out of Sing Sing the other day."
"Surely you're mistaken," I said, smiling right into his blue eyes.
"The Tom Dorgan I mentioned is a sleight-of-hand performer at the
Vaudeville. Ever see him?"
"N--no."
"Clever fellow. You ought to. Perhaps you don't recognize him under
that name. On the bills he's Professor Haughwout. Stage people have
so many names, you know."
"Yes, so have--some other people."