"Exactly. And he played safe seven different ways. He saw to it that
Tim and Walt Yeager engaged passage on a French liner for New York and
he had it framed with Walt that he wasn't to say a word to Tim until
they were pretty close to the customs when all Walt was to do was to
turn the stuff over to Tim, watch Tim smuggle it through and then get
it back from him and deliver it to Lathrop. Tim was to make the trip
knowing that some one was going to slip him some jewels just before
they got to customs. And as true as I'm telling you, Jim, he didn't
know it was nothing more than a smuggling job. It never occurred to him
that there might be something behind it.
"Lathrop never even come back on the same ship with them. He sailed a
week ahead from Southampton. Tim and Walt came over together from Havre
and a couple days before they reached New York, Walt slipped Tim the
stuff.
"Well, there aint any use botherin' you with details about how Tim
tried to work it. It's enough to say that they nabbed him. Caught him
dead to rights. Tim was sorry, but he wasn't really worried. He knew
all he had to do was to get in touch with Lathrop on the Q. T. and a
heap of influence would be used to get him a fine instead of a jail
sentence and that Lathrop would pay the fine. But--" her hand went out
and tightened grimly over Jim's flappy paw--"Lathrop welched. Welched
like a dirty yeller dog. He said he didn't know Tim, hadn't never seen
him before, and had nothing whatever to do with the case. Meanwhile
Tim, feeling secure, had pleaded guilty to the smuggling charge.
"And it wasn't until after he pleaded guilty to that, Jim--and Walt
Yeager had disappeared--that Tim learned how bad he was in. Because the
jewels he had admitted smuggling were the ones which had been stolen in
Paris and they were recognized instanter. That's where Tim was crossed
up. It wasn't that they nabbed him for smuggling--he was guilty of
that and willing to take his medicine. But he wasn't mixed up in the
robbery....
"And here's the lay of the land now. Tim got two years in the Federal
prison for smuggling. He's been there seven months. The jewels have
been returned to Paris. Yeager has disappeared. Noah Lathrop swears he
don't know nothing about anything crooked. And when Tim gets through
serving his smuggling time, Jim--they're going to send him back to
Paris to stand trial for stealing them jewels."
Her voice trailed off. Jim blinked with maddening slowness and turned
his apparently sightless eyes upon a pert little squirrel nearby. But
his voice was charged with keenest sympathy----
"They've got him dead to rights, sure enough, aint they, Mary?"
"Yes," with fierce bitterness, "they have. He hasn't a leg to stand on.
It's twenty or twenty-five years in a French prison for him. He was in
Paris when the robbery occurred--no chance to prove an alibi. He tried
to smuggle the stones. He was caught red-handed. He confessed to the
smuggling. Lathrop was in the clear--what's Tim's word against his? And
I--well, I don't mind the two years Tim is doing: he went into that
with his eyes open ... but Jim--I'm out to save Tim from doing a twenty
year stretch for something he never even knew about. That's what I'm
doing, Jim. Now do you understand?"
Jim nodded a ponderous affirmative. "I sure do, Mary. I sure do. But I
still don't quite savvy this nurse stuff."
Her voice came crisply now in response to the warm friendliness of the
detective's tone. "Any man who will do what Noah Lathrop did is the
dirtiest kind of a crook. He's poison mean and low-down and rotten. You
never knew a first class crook who would welch like that, did you?"
"No-o. Not no decent crook."
"Neither did I. And I figured out if Lathrop was that crooked--it
wasn't the first time. He's a prominent man and he's proud. He must
have slipped before. It's a certainty that some time in his life he's
done something just as rotten as the trick he pulled on Tim. Oh! I
wouldn't be kicking if he'd come clean with Tim in the first place and
told him it was stolen stuff. It was the double-crossing and then the
welching that hurt. And the fact that Tim is innocent. A crook has a
hard enough life serving time for what he really does, let alone what
he don't do.
"That's why I worked around and got this job as nursegirl in Lathrop's
home. I've got a room on the place, and I'm watching, Jim--I'm watching
close. I'm learning a heap about that bird. He's rotten all the way
through--a cheap, piking, safety-first crook. Smug and self-satisfied
and so stuck on himself I want to kill him sometimes. Of course he
don't dream I know Tim Lannigan or that I'm anything except what I seem.
"And some day, Jim, I'm gonna get something on Noah Lathrop--something
that he'd rather die than see come out. And when I do I'm gonna make
him sing. I'm gonna make him come out in the clear and save Tim
from doing that stretch in France." She threw her arms wide in an
unconsciously dramatic gesture--"That's why I'm working as a nursegirl
in his house, Jim--that's why."
Pauline Lathrop appeared and demanded two cents with which to purchase
an apple-on-a-stick. She accepted the money from Jim but again
expressed her disdain for the vulgar toothpick. "And your cigars smell
terrible."