“Tuesday evening’s and Wednesday morning’s papers were full of the news of his disappearance, but nothing was said about the check. That looked good, but we waited another day for good measure. Fag Kilcourse was in on the game by this time, of course, and I had had to pass over the twenty thousand dollars, but I still had hopes of getting it—or most of it—back, so I continued to string him along. I had a hard time keeping him off Burke, though, because he had begun to think he had some sort of right to me, and jealousy made him wicked. But I got Tin-Star to throw a scare into him, and I thought Burke was safe.
“Tonight one of Tin-Star’s men came up and told us that a man named Porky Grout, who had been hanging around the place for a couple of nights, had made a couple of cracks that might mean he was interested in us. Grout was pointed out to me, and I took a chance on showing myself in the public part of the place, and sat at a table close to his. He was plain rat—as I guess you know—and in less than five minutes I had him at my table, and half an hour later I knew that he had tipped you off that Burke and I were in the White Shack. He didn’t tell me all this right out, but he told me more than enough for me to guess the rest.
“I went up and told the others. Fag was for killing both Grout and Burke right away. But I talked him out of it. That wouldn’t help us any, and I had Grout where he would jump in the ocean for me. I thought I had Fag convinced, but—We finally decided that Burke and I would take the roadster and leave, and that when you got here Porky Grout was to pretend he was hopped up, and point out a man and a woman—any who happened to be handy—as the ones he had taken for us. I stopped to get a cloak and gloves, and Burke went on out to the car alone—and Fag shot him. I didn’t know he was going to! I wouldn’t have let him! Please believe that! I wasn’t as much in love with Burke as I had thought, but please believe that after all he had done for me I wouldn’t have let them hurt him!
“After that it was a case of stick with the others whether I liked it or not, and I stuck. We ribbed Grout to tell you that all three of us were on the back porch when Burke was killed, and we had any number of others primed with the same story. Then you came up and recognized me. Just my luck that it had to be you—the only detective in San Francisco who knew me!
“You know the rest: how Porky Grout came up behind you and turned off the lights, and Joplin held you while we ran for the car; and then, when you closed in on us, Grout offered to stand you off while we got clear, and now. …”
XVIII
Her voice died, and she shivered a little. The robe I had given her had fallen away from her white shoulders. Whether or not it was because she was so close against my shoulder, I shivered, too. And my fingers, fumbling in my pocket for a cigarette, brought it out twisted and mashed.
“That’s all there is to the part you promised to listen to,” she said softly, her face turned half away. “I wanted you to know. You’re a hard man, but somehow I—”
I cleared my throat, and the hand that held the mangled cigarette was suddenly steady.
“Now don’t be crude, sister,” I said. “Your work has been too smooth so far to be spoiled by rough stuff now.”
She laughed—a brief laugh that was bitter and reckless and just a little weary, and she thrust her face still closer to mine, and the grey eyes were soft and placid.
“Little fat detective whose name I don’t know”—her voice had a tired huskiness in it, and a tired mockery—“you think I am playing a part, don’t you? You think I am playing for liberty. Perhaps I am. I certainly would take it if it were offered me. But—Men have thought me beautiful, and I have played with them. Women are like that. Men have loved me and, doing what I liked with them, I have found men contemptible. And then comes this little fat detective whose name I don’t know, and he acts as if I were a hag—an old squaw. Can I help then being piqued into some sort of feeling for him? Women are like that. Am I so homely that any man has a right to look at me without even interest? Am I ugly?”
I shook my head.
“You’re quite pretty,” I said, struggling to keep my voice as casual as the words.
“You beast!” she spat, and then her smile grew gentle again. “And yet it is because of that attitude that I sit here and turn myself inside out for you. If you were to take me in your arms and hold me close to the chest that I am already leaning against, and if you were to tell me that there is no jail ahead for me just now, I would be glad, of course. But, though for a while you might hold me, you would then be only one of the men with which I am familiar: men who love and are used and are succeeded by other men. But because you do none of these things, because you are a wooden block of a man, I find myself wanting you. Would I tell you this, little fat detective, if I were playing a game?”
I grunted noncommittally, and forcibly restrained my
