"An' when I got off the car at the 'loop'," she ended, "an' changed into the Second Avenue cable, somebody in the crowd swiped me bag. I didn't have even a transfer left, an' I had to walk here. I was pushing along in the crowd lookin' at the signs 'Beware of pickpockets', an' thinkin' it was good I had no pockets to pick, when it come over me that my bag was gone. Just that easy! Me what ought to have known better. Say, you know it would be just as good as suicide to go an' give that 'pipe' to Grandpa. So I was thinking maybe you'd go round and sort of break the news. He's got a lot of respect for you. An' honest, I ain't kiddin'. He'd kill me for that five dollars." Then with sudden fury she ended, "I'd killhimfor five cents."
Miss Bailey had never responded with less alacrity to a cry for help. She had a genuine horror of the fierce, sore-eyed old vulture, with whom she had had to struggle so determinedly for the privilege of teaching Gertie. "Of course," she said at last, "he will have to know—" But Miss Bailey was wrong, Mr. Armusheffsky never knew.
Room 18's door opened again to admit two policemen, one plain-clothes man, who silently showed his badge to Miss Bailey, and three garrulous and dishevelled neighbors of the Armusheffsky ménage.
At sight of Gertie the neighbors grew vociferous, triumphant. The policemen stationed themselves one on either side of Gertie, and the plain-clothes man explained to Miss Bailey that old Armusheffsky had been found murdered in his store, and that every man and woman forblocks around was as ready as these incoherent samples to testify that his granddaughter had often wished him dead, and had sometimes threatened to kill him.
"So I guess," he ended pleasantly, "that 'The Tombs' will be this young lady's address for a spell."
"But I've been in Brooklyn all day," protested Gertie when at last she found speech.
"Can you prove it? Talked to anybody? Got any witnesses?"
Gertie recapitulated her story.
"Got the goods you bought? Got the check on them?"
Gertie explained the loss of the purse.
The plain-clothes man shook his head. "I'm sorry, Miss," said he to Miss Bailey, "but I guess it's a case for the sergeant. Of course if that hand satchel turns up it will be all right, but the case looks bad to me. She ain't the first what took thequickest way out of things she couldn't stand. I don't blame them myself, but that's the jury's business. Mine is to take the girl along with me. Your thinking so much of her will go a good ways to help her out. The patrol wagon is at the door. We'll just be moseying along."
Gertie went with him without a word. Her escape from her grandfather's vituperations seemed to make her oblivious to everything else. Miss Bailey, however, was comforted by no such blindness. She realized that tragedy, perhaps death, had come to Room 18, and she set about averting them with characteristic energy.
The one frail thread upon which Gertie's life hung led to one or two pawn shops whence purses, not hers, were reported. Then it snapped, and a whole mountain of circumstantial evidence was piled up in readiness to drop on her defenceless head when the days of the trialshould come. Constance Bailey had never been so close to tragedy before, and she bore the juxtaposition very badly. She persisted in, and insisted upon effort, after the police and the reporters had done their best and worst. But always she was met, though never quite daunted, by the challenge to produce the purse with the proofs of alibi.
Under these conditions it naturally occurred that the little First Readers received but a very divided attention. Affairs of state in Room 18 were left largely to the board of monitors, and more than ever did it seem desirable to Isidore Cohen to secure a portfolio within that cabinet. For more than a week he had been ready to present his application. The proof of his fitness for office was wrapped in a newspaper under the decayed mattress upon which he slept. And he only waited a propitious momentto lay it and his application before Teacher. Her new habit of dashing away at the stroke of three had hitherto interfered with his plan, but about a week after Gertie's arrest he found courage to elude the janitor, and to make his way to Room 18 at a quarter past eight in the morning.
And Miss Bailey arriving—pale, distraught, and heavy-eyed—at eight twenty-five, found the lost purse lying upon her blotter, and Isidore Cohen ready with the speech of presentation.
"Mine auntie," it began—he had never had an aunt—"she don't needs this pocket-book no more. You can have it."
Miss Bailey dropped into her chair. "Isidore!" cried she. "Oh, Isidore! You're the cleverest boy! I would rather have this bag than anything else in the world."
A moment later her joy was gone again. The bag was absolutely empty, and Constance Bailey did some of the keenest thinking of her career.
"It would be quite perfect," said she, "if I only had a few little things in it. Perhaps a transfer, a lace collar, or some pieces of paper"—she caught the gleam in Isidore's rabbit eye, and amended quickly—"not money, of course. It would be foolish to carry money in a bag like this"—the gleam vanished—"but just a few papers and things would seem more natural."
"Stands somethings like that to my house," Isidore vouchsafed generously. "Mine auntie don't needs them too."
"Then perhaps," said Constance Bailey carefully, "perhaps, dear, your aunt would let me have them."
"I likes," said Isidore, dashing off at an unmistakably natural tangent, "Ilikes I shall be monitors maybe off of somethings."
Miss Bailey felt the teeth of the trap, but she knew that her hand was touching the very life of Gertie Armusheffsky, and she made no effort to escape. "And what sort of a monitor would you like to be?" she asked casually.
"Off of supplies," was his decided answer.
"I think that could be arranged," she replied. "And these little things to put in my bag?"
"I could to git 'em 'fore the other kids comes in," said Isidore.
And a few moments later she had obtained leave of absence from the principal, and was buttoning her gloves while she gave her final instructions to the substitute who would minister until luncheon hour to the First Readers.
"I'm quite sure you will have notrouble. The children understand that I shall be back in the afternoon. If you want pencils, paper, or anything else, Isidore Cohen will get them for you. For Isidore"—and she laid her hand upon his narrow head—"Isidore is monitor of supplies."
Very late that afternoon a disillusioned monitor of supplies fared unostentatiously homeward from Room 18. He had never met candor equal to Miss Bailey's, and he was in the grip of the paralyzing conviction that for as long as he remained within her sphere of influence, honesty would be the only expedient policy.
Transcriber's noteThe following changes have been made to the text:Page 32: Was 'or' (healthyforsomebody)Page 43: Was 'be' (bythe man)Page 150: Was 'or' (or atthe hospital ward)Page 244: Was 'chauffers' (chauffeur)
The following changes have been made to the text:
Page 32: Was 'or' (healthyforsomebody)
Page 43: Was 'be' (bythe man)
Page 150: Was 'or' (or atthe hospital ward)
Page 244: Was 'chauffers' (chauffeur)