II
THE force of the threat made the girl withdraw her hand. She met the laugh which followed with a look of defiance, but she had not art nor cleverness enough to conceal the fact that she was rattled. Her cheeks grew scarlet. Some very white and even teeth bit savagely into her lower lip.
The man, watching narrowly, was obviously pleased with the effect.
“Got me now, hey, Miss Durrance?”
“I don’t know who you are,” was the answer of Miss Durrance. A brave and steady answer it was. “And I don’t want to know anyway.”
The look in the girl’s eyes, the note in her voice, appeared sharply to recall the man opposite to a sense of his position. After all, it would not do to carry the thing too far. It was as if he suddenly remembered that in an especial degree he was a guardian of the public interest. When he spoke again his voice had consideration, even a certain kindness.
“I’m one of Tillotson’s men.”
Already her startled mind had flown to that conclusion. But neither the man’s change of tone nor her own insight softened the steely hostility of her eyes. She lifted a fighting chin to rake him with a glance ofgrey fire. “I’m a very respectable girl.” The note was deeper than she had touched yet. “I don’t know you an’ I don’t want to know you. Cops are no class anyway.”
Detective Addelsee, an eminent member of a highly specialised calling, was a long way from being a fool. He was growing a bit annoyed with himself for his lack of diplomacy. In spite of the girl’s insolence there was something about her that he respected. And, what was just as important, he respected human nature.
He decided to remove the bad impression he had made. “Got in wrong in New York, hey? Over here, ain’t you, to try and change the luck?” His voice was honey now. Its only reward was grim silence.
“Know folks this side?”
The girl looked at Detective Addelsee as if he were dirt. She curled her lip and shook a scornful head.
“Then you better watch your step. London crawls with slick ducks. All sorts, all nations. Up to every game. A bad place, London.”
“If it’s worsen New York, it must be,” conceded Miss Durrance.
“Capital of a free country. Every kind of cag-handed dago lies around loose in London. No place for a lone girl. What’s the stuff you goin’ to pull?”
“That’s my affair.”
Detective Addelsee smiled. He had caught a tartar. But he secretly liked the way she gave it him back. Sand always appealed to him.
“Well, I wish you the best, Miss Durrance.” Thevoice was official, yet kindness came uppermost. “We’ve nothing against you in New York; but we might have had. You got in with a crooked push. Sorry to have to run you in, but findin’ you on the premises and callin’ yourself the old Haunt’s secretary—she done two goes of time already—how wasweto knowyouwere on the level?”
Detective Addelsee meant well, but this display of tact hardly met the case. The grey eyes looked straight through him. He laughed. Serve him right for being clumsy. A regular little hell cat, but he admired her. Most girls of her kind would have been scared to death; he half suspected Miss Durrance was; but she would have died sooner than let him know it.
He liked the cut of her so much that he felt he must try to improve the acquaintance or at least to soften a bad impression. It was a shame to rag her, because to the expert eye she had a look of being up against it. But her pride, her grit, lured him on.
“What you goin’ into, Miss Durrance, in this bum island? The movies?”
“No, I ain’t, Fatty Arbuckle.”
The answer was pat as your hat. Detective Addelsee chuckled.
“Make good on the fillum, a girl of your looks and style.”
She eyed him with cool scorn from under the brim of her hat. “What’s a cheap guy like you know about looks and style?”
Her drawl could only have come from one place onearth, yet each little word had a kick in it quick and vicious, as if from the hind leg of a mule. Detective Addelsee felt this live child of the Middle West had had old Ned for a sire.
He decided now that only one course would be safe. That course was silence. But he had not been so amused in years. The trained professional memory at once recalled the circumstance of their previous meeting. During a raid on the apartment of an old harpy in the neighbourhood of Madison Avenue, who mingled crystal-gazing and fortune-telling with other illegal practices, this girl had been found seated at a typewriter. Investigation proved, however, that she had only held her job a fortnight, and that in the first place her association with such a dangerous person was due to an advertisement she had incautiously answered. Mame Durrance had no difficulty in satisfying the police that she was in total ignorance of the character and history of the notorious Cassandra, alias Zeno, alias Madame Bretsky. All the same the law took pains to impress on the unlucky stenographer that her escape had been narrow. In future she must be more discreet. Innocence as great as hers was apt to incur heavy penalties in such a city as New York.
This episode, as Detective Addelsee was shrewd enough to suspect, had shaken Miss Durrance to her foundations. She was undoubtedly a very respectable girl, the daughter of a simple Iowa farmer, and she had come East to try her luck. Having made a bad break at the start of her career she had decided to seekfortune elsewhere. As William R. Addelsee sat gazing at that fighting profile out of the corner of his left eye, all that he knew about the girl passed in review order through a well-regulated mind. His had been the job of running her in; and of setting her free with a caution. He had caught sight of her again as she left the second-class deck of theSidonia; he had seen her board the London train. She had the sort of personality not easy to forget. He was interested in this girl for her own sake; but the effort to get into conversation was having no success. The plain truth was, that as far as Miss Durrance was concerned William R. Addelsee was in the discard.
Man of the world, he was amused by her attitude. And he admired her grit. Moreover, he wished her well. That, however, was not easy to convey.
He tried the dulcet and disarming. “You see, Miss Durrance, there’s a bunch of jewel thieves I’m lookin’ for. Scotland Yard has rounded up several. I expect we’ll soon fix the hull circus.”
Miss Durrance, with glacial eye, continued to gaze upon the English scene. “The frozen mit” with a vengeance. Jewel thieves, Scotland Yard, even the brightest of Tillotson’s Agency, haloed with romance for a normal girl, were cutting no ice for the moment. Her pride had been wounded and Detective Addelsee had now to foot the bill.
“You can quit.” A fierce eye pinned him like an arrow. “Cops don’t interest me nothing.”
Silence again. The position was a little humiliatingfor a man of the world. But this charming spitfire intrigued him. Such a you-be-damnedness quite took the fancy of William R. And the simple independence touched his sense of chivalry.
“If I can help you any I’ll be glad,” he said, humble as pie, yet adroitly raising a hand to hide the laugh in his eyes.
Said Miss Spitfire: “You can beat it. That’ll help me considerable.”
The entrance at this moment of a very small and very polite boy in a strangely bright and extremely tight suit of livery was most opportune. Miss Durrance, who had a fixed determination to see, mark and learn as much as she could in the shortest time possible, was taken at once by this new kind of “bell-hop.”
“Corfee, miss?”
The fair traveller ordered coffee.
Under cover of this diversion William R. suddenly rose. It was the best chance he was likely to get of extricating himself with any sort of dignity from a position which every second grew worse. Nothing doing with this girl, and it was hardly fair to bait her.
As Detective Addelsee, on the heels of the departing boy, moved towards the corridor, he was guilty of one more false step. For he looked back and said: “Good-bye, Miss Durrance, an’ good luck. Be careful this time to get in on the level. But I’ll say London is a tough burg. If any time I can help you any, my name’s Addelsee.” He had the temerity to open a gold cigar case and produce his card. “Scotland Yard, Whitehall,’ll get me pro tem.” As concrete evidence of good will, Detective Addelsee had the further temerity to write his address upon the card and then with a bland smile to hand it to Miss Durrance.
It was asking for trouble. William R. Addelsee duly received a full ration. Miss Durrance tore the card across. Then she coolly lowered the window and flung out the pieces. “Beat it.” Her face was crimson, her eye ruthless. “And thank you for nix. Cops are no class at all, cops aren’t.”
With a little sigh that was offset by a humorous eye, Detective Addelsee raised the ten-dollar Stetson and followed the bell-boy along the corridor.