"Casey."
"In the rear--I'll show ye," and she led the way to a precipitous
flight of steps. "Ye go down, an' 'long 's far 's ye kin, thin turn t'
th' right an' knock," she said, and disappeared in the mist.
Groping his way, the man reached the end of a long passage between two
tenements and knocked at a rear door. A woman opened it.
"Th' ditictive," she murmured, and let him in.
The kitchen was stifling close; a fire raged to the brim of the big,
heavily nickeled stove which had cost the Caseys so dear in instalments
and in worry. Casey had been working for two weeks, and the bin outside
the kitchen door had a ton of soft coal in it. In a bracket above the
sink was a lamp whose tin reflector, instead of diffusing the light
rays, seemed to concentrate them, like a feeble searchlight, so that
the corners of the kitchen were all in gloom, and half-lost in gloom
were the forms of the Caseys, whose pallid faces showed sharply against
the dusk.
"Had any word?" said the detective, addressing Mrs. Casey. To the
relief of the parents and the bitter disappointment of the children, he
was a plain-clothes man.
"Niver a worrd."
The detective consulted a memorandum.
"You say she left home Monday morning, just as usual, to go to work?"
"Yissir; she wint down th' alley here hummin' a chune an' as gay as a
burrd."
"And you don't think she intended to stay away?"
Mary Casey's eyes flashed. "If I t'ought a gyurl o' mine could walk out
an' l'ave me, intintional, wid a chune on her lyin' lips, I'd not ask
ye t' be findin' her," she said.
"Did she have a beau?"
"None thot I iver see. She used t' be after talkin', sometoimes, 'bout
gran' fellies she'd see downtown, an' I always sez to her, 'You mark
me worrds an' l'ave gran' fellies be. They don't mane no good t' th'
loikes o' you,' I sez. 'Thim fellies spinds ivry cint they git on their
gold watches an' swallie-tails, an' whin they marry they got t' marry
a gyurl wid money t' support thim. Whin yer old enough t' take up wid
anny wan,' I sez, 'yer pa or yer Uncle Tim'll introjuce ye t' some nice
young lab'rin' man wid a good trade an' ambition t' git on, an' you
work fer him whoile he works fer you.' 'Ah, ye don' know nothin' 'bout
it,' she'd say t' me, an' 'Don't you belave thot,' I'd say t' her, 'I'm
nothin' t' look at, an' I ain't got mooch style about me, but I got
some knowlidge o' min,' I sez, 'an' they're a bad lot, aven th' bist o'
thim. An' you git it out o' yer hid,' I sez, 'thot anny gran' felly's
goin' t' marry you, or th' loikes o' you. Ye may rade such foolishness
in yer story paapers er see it at yer theayters, but ye kin mark me
worrds thot love is fer tony folks thot kin afford it, an' not fer th'
loikes o' you an' me.'"
Up to this time Casey had been conspicuously quiet. He had had his own
experiences with the Chicago police, who more than once had ordered
him to keep away from his abused family or go to the Bridewell. This
was buried deep in the voluminous records of the desk sergeant; but
Casey had not the comfort of knowing that there were a thousand kindred
cases piled a-top of his, so he kept discreetly in the shadow until
the detective asked, "Was she gay at all?" and Mrs. Casey replied:
"She be a little granehorn, wid no sinse yet. I'm after taalkin' t' her
th' whole, blissed toime 'bout kapin' straight, an' not l'avin' her go
by dances er stay out nights, but I dunno--ye can't kape thim in yer
pocket, an' whin a gyurl have her livin' t' earn anny place she kin
foind it, 't ain't her mother thot know fer sure wheer she is or what
she be."
At this Casey sat suddenly forward in his chair, and the streak of
light fell full across his face, swollen with tears and streaked with
the grime of three awful days. Despite the grime, however, despite the
stubble of reddish beard, the unkempt hair and untidy clothes, there
was something singularly pathetic about him, with his great, Irish-blue
eyes and youthful, innocent-looking face. He had not been drinking for
some weeks, and he wore no air of sottishness, nor of vagrancy, nor of
any of his other crimes against self and family and society.
"I dunno what I ever done," he had moaned for three days, rocking back
and forth in his misery, the tears raining down his unwashed cheeks and
splashing from his stubbly chin, "I dunno what I ever done that this
thing should 'a' happened t' me! My gyurl! My Ang'la Ann!"
"She were a good gyurl," he said to the detective, sitting suddenly
forward.
"So far 's we know, she were," his wife amended, "but she had no sinse
yet, bein' so young, an' th' young niver belaves th' old. I don' see
how a gyurl o' mine could go wrong, an' me hatin' it th' way I do. But
she have more o' him in her nor o' me, down t' thim same shifty blue
eyes thot kin look so swate, an' God knows what divilment's behint
thim!"
Casey smiled in wan coquetry at this charge against his fascinations,
but reiterated in defense of his daughter:
"She were a good gyurl. I seen a piece o' this world, of'cer, an' I kin
till--min like us, we kin till gyurls that's merely flightsome from
thim that's gon' t' th' bad. If she's bad, I don' want ye t' find her.
Jes' show me th' felly thot lied t' her, an' I'll kill him--but I don'
want ye t' find her; I don' niver want t' set eyes on her ag'in, if
she've brought disgrace on me."
"Ye won't lit it git in th' paapers, will ye?" Mary Casey pleaded
for the twentieth time in her brief communications with the police.
"Yell kape thim aff av her, won't ye--fer th' love o' Hiven? I'm after
tellin' th' childern I'll kill th' first wan o' thim thot breathes t'
a soul we don' know wheer Ang'la Ann is. Ag'in' she be all right an'
come home some day, it'd go hard wid her if these Sheenies 'round here
knew she was gon'--people do belave th' worst of a gyurl, always. I
dunno what t' think o' my Ang'la Ann, but I don' want it to go haard
wid her if she don' desarve it."
The detective promised about the papers and went his way. A missing
girl, with no probable complications of a horrible murder, excited
only the feeblest interest at Maxwell Street, and this visit would
comprehend the whole of the police activity expended in the case unless
Angela Ann should happen to turn up under their incurious noses.
The facts of the case were these: Angela Ann Casey, a slim,
under-sized, pretty young thing just under eighteen, had left home
on Monday morning, November 7th, apparently to go to work, and had
not been seen since by her family or any one they knew. She was an
unskilled worker, a bit of flotsam in the industrial whirlpool so cruel
to her kind. In the summer she had worked for a few weeks in a cannery,
pasting labels on fruit cans. When the cannery shut down, she answered
an "ad" for extra help in the rush season of a cap factory, which laid
her off when work slackened. And after a fortnight's idleness she was
taken on as a bundle-wrapper in a cheap department store, where she met
a girl who told her of a place needing more girls for the manufacture
of cheap finery for the "levee" trade. Angela Ann applied, and was
given work at a knife-pleating machine, at four dollars and a half a
week. She was in this job, to the best of her mother's belief, when
she disappeared; but a visit to the place on Tuesday laid bare the
startling fact that she had "give notice" on Saturday night.
Angela Ann had few intimates; her associates changed with her changes
of occupation, and these were so many that she took root nowhere. A
girl on Blue Island Avenue, to whose house Angela Ann sometimes went,
called at Henry Street Tuesday evening and was told that Angela was out.
"She's tellin' me she have a gran' fella," said the girl questioningly.
"She have," lied Mary promptly, "did she iver tell ye his name?"
No, she hadn't; so Mary said maybe Angela Ann wouldn't want her to tell
it either.
Mary's sister, Maggie O'Connor, who was married to a "will-t'-do"
blacksmith and lived but a few blocks away, had also heard of a stylish
young man who could not be asked to the back cellar on Henry Street, or
even allowed to suspect it. In family council Mrs. O'Connor testified
that she had offered her own "parlie" for the courting.
"'Bring him here an' l'ave us have a look at him,' I sez to her. 'Ye
kin have th' parlie anny toime ye want it,' I sez, 'an' if yer 'shamed
o' yer Uncle Tim's brogue, he kin stay in th' shop, an' I'll talk t'
him mesilf,' I sez."
But Angela Ann had not accepted this handsome offer, nor had she
confided the name of the young man to Mrs. O'Connor, who only knew that
Angela Ann had assured her he was a gentleman beyond a doubt, for he
had a gold watch and chain.
Fired by this information, which he considered an important clue,
Casey was for carrying it at once to the police so that they might
investigate all young men wearing gold watches and thereby in due
process find the one who knew Angela Ann. But before he could get
away to furnish the detectives with this important information, Mrs.
O'Connor had made some further suggestions. The chief of these was
touching the advisability of consulting a fortune-teller.
"Thim coppers," she opined, "is no good. Tim's after radin' a lot about
thim in th' paapers, an' he sez they niver ketch nothin' 't all. He
sint ye a dollar wid me and sez he, 'You till thim t' stop foolin' wid
coppers an' go t' th' forchune-teller,' sez he."
"I belave it have more t' do wid what th' forchune-teller know than
wid what thim coppers kin foind out," reflected Mary Casey. It was the
morning after the detective's visit, and Mrs. O'Connor had come over
to ask the news. "Theer's somet'ing I didn't till th' ditictive," Mary
confessed, "not knowin' how he'd take it--but the day befoore Ang'la
Ann wint, a quare, wan-eyed cat kem here. Ivrywheer I wint thot day she
traipsed at me heels, an' all Monday noight whin I was up watchin' fer
Ang'la, th' cat was on th' windie-sill, howlin' what sounded joost like
Aan-gla, Aan-gla, Aan-gla. Now what d'ye make o' thot?"
Mrs. O'Connor had been fumbling in her plush wrist-bag during this
recital. "Say," she said presently, holding out a very dirty card, "th'
las' noight Ang'la Ann was t' our house she was after l'avin' th' baby
play wid her purse, an' th' baby spilt all th' t'ings out av it. We
picked thim up, an' I t'ought we got thim all, but whin I was clanein'
yiste'day, I foun' this card. It mus' be hers, fer Tim say he niver see
it, an' no more did I."
The card read:
[Illustration: O. HALBERG,
_Dramatic Agent--West Madison Street_.]
"That's him, I bet ye!" cried Casey excitedly, "that's th' felly wid
th' gol' watch an' chain!"
"Wait a minute!" commanded Mrs. O'Connor impatiently, "Tim sez thot
have somet'ing t' do wid a theayter."
"Sure," said Mary Casey, "Ang'la Ann wouldn't be so grane as t' ixpict
no theayter guy t' marry her! She'd ought t' know thim niver marries;
or if they do, they have a woife in ivery town, loike soldiers an'
travelin'-min! I niver bin to no theayter in my loife, but I know that
mooch!"
Casey, who had lost his job by default, and had sat apathetically by
the stove ever since gray morning dawned after the frantic vigil of
Monday night, was struggling with the lacings of his shoes preparatory
to setting forth to demolish O. Halberg if he proved his guilt by
wearing a gold watch and chain.
"Ye kin spend yer dollar on yer wan-eyed cat," he said indulgently,
"but as fer me, I got t' foind thot felly thot lied t' me gyurl."
So the inaction of the past three days was over, temporarily at least.
Casey was bound for O. Halberg's and Mrs. Casey and Mrs. O'Connor were
going to approach some fortune-teller with the dollar and the tale of
the cat. But first of all Mary must go to the school and take Johnny
out to mind Dewey and the baby in her absence.
"Now you be keerful," she adjured Casey as he made ready to go, "an'
don' kill nobody be mistaake. Th' bist way is t' kill nobody at all,"
she continued cautiously.
In spite of this caution, however, there would have been danger in
prospect if Casey had owned a gun or if he had taken a few drinks. As
it was, he was not a formidable figure when he presented himself at the
number on West Madison Street, a few doors from Halsted.
There was a pawnshop on the first floor, and beside it a narrow door,
which opened upon a long flight of wooden stairs rising steeply to a
dark hall, where, by the light of a two-foot gas burner, Casey could
make out the name "O. Halberg" on one of the dozen doors. The name was
painted on a black tin plate tacked to a rear door. Casey knocked.
"Come in," said a guttural voice.
Entering, Casey saw a man sitting with his feet on a battered desk;
he was reading the morning paper and smoking a vile cigar. The
walls, calcimined a kind of ultramarine blue, but grimed and fouled
unspeakably, were hung with theatrical lithographs depicting thrilling
scenes from plays on the blood-and-thunder circuit. For the rest, the
furnishings were two wooden chairs, a giant cuspidor, and the desk,
which looked as if it had never been new.
"Have I," said Casey in his grandest manner, "th' honor t' addriss Mr.
O. Halberg?"
O. Halberg grunted that he had. Then Casey advanced a step further
into the room and looked about for a sight or trace of Angela Ann.
Nothing could have been more damning than O. Halberg's gold chain, but
in no likelihood would Angela Ann, by any stretch of courtesy, have
called him young; he was probably fifty, and not prepossessing from any
possible point of view.
"Me name is Casey," ventured the visitor, "me gyurl is lost, an' I'm
lookin' fer her. We found this," proffering the dirty card, "an' we
t'ought mebbe you'd know wheer she is."
Casey was proud of the neatness and despatch of his "ditictive"
methods, but more than a little disappointed to find so soon that he
was on the wrong trail entirely. Mr. Halberg was truly surprised to be
approached with any such query. A great many little silly, stage-struck
girls flocked to see him, of course, and no doubt some of them got
hold of his cards "in the hope of using them to impress managers," but
he had no recollection of any girl named Casey--none whatever. And he
resumed the reading of his paper.
"I got th' coppers after her," murmured Casey apologetically, as he
took his leave, "but thim coppers is no good. Ag'in' ye want ditictive
work done, ye better do it yersilf."
O. Halberg did not deign to reply, but when Casey was safely outside he
stepped to the door and locked it. In case the "coppers" came around,
it would be just as well to be "out"--it would save the coppers some
troublesome pretense.
In his descent of the steep stairs Casey met two girls coming up. They
were about Angela Ann's age and were giggling nervously. One of them
held between thumb and finger a quarter-inch "ad" from a morning paper,
offering:
"High-salaried positions in good road companies to young ladies of
pleasing appearance. O. Halberg, Dramatic Agent--West Madison Street."
"Ask him if this is the place," said the girl who appeared to be
following the other's lead. Casey directed them to O. Halberg's door,
then went on his way. A moment later, while he stood on the corner of
Halsted Street waiting for a south-bound car, he saw the girls emerge
from the door by the pawnshop. They passed him as they went to take an
east-bound Madison Street car on the opposite corner.
"Did ye foind him?" Casey asked.
"No, he wasn't in."
"That's quare," he said, startled, "he was there wan minute before."
On his way home Casey dropped in at the Maxwell Street Station in a
free-and-easy manner he would not have dreamed possible two days ago.
He was so full of his "ditictive" experience that he felt he must have
some one, if only a copper, to talk it over with. The detective who had
called the night before wasn't in, so Casey related his recent daring
exploit to no less a personage than the desk sergeant himself.
It was well poor Casey could not hear the desk sergeant's account of
the call after the self-appointed sleuth had gone on his way.
Mrs. Casey was at home when her husband got there. Relating her
adventures, after she had listened to his, she said that the
fortune-teller, after accepting the dollar, had asked several searching
questions about the one-eyed cat.
"'Ag'in' th' cat come back, yer gyurl 'll come home,' she sez t' me."