'He wouldn't tell me his name.'
'Didn't recognize his voice?'
'No.'
'What kind of voice was it?'
'He talked in an undertone, as if afraid of being overheard. I had difficulty understanding him.'
'He whispered?' The chief's mouth hung open as the last sound left it. His greenish eyes sparkled greedily between their pads of fat.
'Yes, a hoarse whisper.'
The chief shut his mouth with a click, opened it again to say persuasively:
'You've heard Thaler talk...
The woman started and stared big-eyed from the chief to me.
'It was he,' she cried. 'It was he.'
Robert Albury, the young assistant cashier of the First National Bank, was sitting in the lobby when I returned to the Great Western Hotel. We went up to my room, had some ice-water brought, used its ice to put chill in Scotch, lemon juice, and grenadine, and then went down to the dining room.
'Now tell me about the lady,' I said when we were working on the soup.
'Have you seen her yet?' he asked.
'Not yet.'
'But you've heard something about her?'
'Only that she's an expert in her line.'
'She is,' he agreed. 'I suppose you'll see her. You'll be disappointed at first. Then, without being able to say how or when it happened, you'll find you've forgotten your disappointment, and the first thing you know you'll be telling her your life's history, and all your troubles and hopes.' He laughed with boyish shyness. 'And then you're caught, absolutely caught.'
'Thanks for the warning. How'd you come by the information?'
He grinned shamefacedly across his suspended soup spoon and confessed:
'I bought it.'
'Then I suppose it cost you plenty. I hear she likes dinero.'
'She's money-mad, all right, but somehow you don't mind it. She's so thoroughly mercenary, so frankly greedy, that there's nothing disagreeable about it. You'll understand what I mean when you know her.'
'Maybe. Mind telling me how you happened to part with her?'
'No, I don't mind. I spent it all, that's how.'
'Cold-blooded like that?'
His face flushed a little. He nodded.
'You seem to have taken it well,' I said.
'There was nothing else to do.' The flush in his pleasant young face deepened and he spoke hesitantly. 'It happens I owe her something for it. She--I'm going to tell you this. I want you to see this side of her. I had a little money. After that was gone-- You must remember I was young and head over heels. After my money was gone there was the bank's. I had-- You don't care whether I had actually done anything or was simply thinking about it. Anyway, she found it out. I never could hide anything from her. And that was the end.'
'She broke off with you?'
'Yes, thank God! If it hadn't been for her you might be looking for me now--for embezzlement. I owe her that!' He wrinkled his forehead earnestly. 'You won't say anything about this--you know what I mean. But I wanted you to know she has her good side too. You'll hear enough about the other.'
'Maybe she has. Or maybe it was just that she didn't think she'd get enough to pay for the risk of being caught in a jam.'
He turned this over in his mind and then shook his head.
'That may have had something to do with it, but not all.'
'I gathered she was strictly pay-as-you-enter.'
'How about Dan Rolff?' he asked.
'Who's he?'
'He's supposed to be her brother, or half-brother, or something of the sort. He isn't. He's a down-and-outer--t. b. He lives with her. She keeps him. She's not in love with him or anything. She simply found him somewhere and took him in.'
'Any more?'
'There was that radical chap she used to run around with. It's not likely she got much money out of him.'
'What radical chap?'
