“You didn’t visit Mr. Winterslip last night,” persisted John Quincy. “Yet, strangely enough, this brooch was found on the floor not far from his dead body.”
She drew in her breath sharply. “Say—what are you? A cop?” she asked.
“Hardly,” John Quincy smiled. “I am here simply to save you, if possible, from the hands of the—er—the cops. If you have any real explanation of this matter, it may not be necessary to call it to the attention of the police.”
“Oh!” She smiled. “Say, that’s decent of you. Now I will tell you the truth. That about not seeing Dan Winterslip since Friday was bunk. I saw him last night.”
“Ah—you did? Where?”
“Right here. Mr. Winterslip gave me that thing about a month ago. Two weeks ago he came to me in a sort of excited way and said he must have it back. It was the only thing he ever give me and I liked it and those emeralds are valuable—so—well, I stalled a while. I said I was having a new clasp put on it. He kept asking for it, and last night he showed up here and said he just had to have it. Said he’d buy me anything in the stores in place of it. I must say he was pretty het up. So I finally turned it over to him and he took it and went away.”
“What time was that?”
“About nine-thirty. He was happy and pleasant and he said I could go to a jewelry store this morning and take my pick of the stock.” She looked pleadingly at John Quincy. “That’s the last I ever saw of him. It’s the truth, so help me.”
“I wonder,” mused John Quincy.
She moved nearer. “Say, you’re a nice kid,” she said. “The kind I used to meet in Boston when we played there. The kind that’s got some consideration for a woman. You ain’t going to drag me into this. Think what it would mean—to me.”
John Quincy did not speak. He saw there were tears in her eyes. “You’ve probably heard things about me,” she went on, “but they ain’t true. You don’t know what I been up against out here. An unprotected woman don’t have much chance anywhere, but on this beach, where men come drifting in from all over the world—I been friendly, that’s my only trouble. I was homesick—oh, God, wasn’t I homesick! I was having a good time back there, and then I fell for Bill Compton and came out here with him, and sometimes in the night I’d wake up and remember Broadway was five thousand miles away, and I’d cry so hard I’d wake him. And that made him sore—”
She paused. John Quincy was impressed by the note of true nostalgia in her voice. He was, suddenly, rather sorry for her.
“Then Bill’s plane crashed on Diamond Head,” she continued, “and I was all alone. And these black sheep along the beach, they knew I was alone—and broke. And I was homesick for Forty-second Street, for the old boardinghouse and the old gang and the Automat and the chewing-gum sign, and tryouts at New Haven. So I gave a few parties just to forget, and people began to talk.”
“You might have gone back,” John Quincy suggested.
“I know—why didn’t I? I been intending to, right along, but every day out here is just like any other day, and somehow you don’t get round to picking one out—I been drifting—but honest to God if you keep me out of this I’ll go home on the first boat. I’ll get me a job, and—and—If you’ll only keep me out of it. You got a chance now to wreck my life—it’s all up to you—but I know you ain’t going to—”
She seized John Quincy’s hand in both of hers, and gazed at him pleadingly through her tears. It was the most uncomfortable moment of his life. He looked wildly about the little room, so different from any in the house on Beacon Street. He pulled his hand away.
“I’ll—I’ll see,” he said, rising hastily. “I’ll think it over.”
“But I can’t sleep tonight if I don’t know,” she told him.
“I’ll have to think it over,” he repeated. He turned toward the table in time to see the woman’s slim hand reach out and seize the bit of jewelry. “I’ll take the brooch,” he added.
She looked up at him. Suddenly John Quincy knew that she had been acting, that his emotions had been falsely played upon, and he felt again that hot rush of blood to the head, that quick surge of anger, he had experienced in Dan Winterslip’s hall. Aunt Minerva had predicted he couldn’t handle a woman of this type. Well, he’d show her—he’d show the world. “Give me that brooch,” he said coldly.
“It’s mine,” answered the woman stubbornly.
John Quincy wasted no words; he seized the woman’s wrist. She screamed. A door opened behind them.
“What’s going on here?” inquired Mr. Leatherbee.
“Oh, I thought you’d left us,” said John Quincy.
“Steve! Don’t let him have it,” cried the woman. Steve moved militantly nearer, but there was a trace of caution in his attitude.
John Quincy laughed. “You stay where you are, Steve,” he advised. “Or I’ll smash that sallow face of yours.” Strange talk for a Winterslip. “Your friend here is trying to hang on to an important bit of evidence in the murder up the beach, and with the utmost reluctance I am forced to use strong-arm methods.” The brooch dropped to the floor, he stooped and picked it up. “Well, I guess that’s about all,” he added. “I’m sorry if you’ve been homesick, Mrs. Compton, but speaking as a Bostonian, I don’t believe Broadway is as glamourous as you picture it. Distance has lent enchantment. Good night.”
He let himself out, and found his way to Kalakaua Avenue. He had settled one thing to his own satisfaction; Chan
