"So?" says I. "Maybe you didn"t notice the size of my a.s.sistant, Swifty Joe, as you came in? His specialty is escortin" obstreperous parties downstairs and dumpin" "em on the curb."
"You try any strong-arm stuff on me and I"ll scream for help!" says she.
"I"ll make a charge against you too."
She looked equal to it, and for a minute I stands there gazin" puzzled at her and scratchin" my head.
"You win," says I. "I can"t have Swifty scratched up. He"s too handsome.
It ain"t any secret I"m keepin" away from you, anyway. All Mr. Steele wants to do is to locate Josie Vernon. It"s a will case, and there may be something in it for her. There! That"s the whole story."
"It"s a fishy one," says she.
"Maybe," says I; "but I"m givin" you my word on it. Produce Josie, and you"ll see."
She squints at me doubtful, glances around the room cautious once or twice, and then remarks quiet, "Very well. I"ll take a chance. I"m Josie."
"Eh?" says I. "You!"
"Ask the Sergeant over at the Nineteenth," says she. "He ran me out of his precinct because I wouldn"t give up enough. Fortune-telling, you know. He wanted twenty a month. Think of that!"
"Never mind the Sarge," says I. "Did you know Mr. Gordon?"
"Pyramid?" says she. "Rather! Back in the "90"s, that was. I was in his offices for awhile."
"Oh--ho!" says I. "Then you must be the one. Would you mind givin" me a sketch of the affair?"
Mrs. Shaw shrugs her shoulders under the old cape. "Why should I care now?" says she. "I sprung a breach of promise suit on him, that"s all. I might have known better. He was a hard man, Pyramid Gordon. What with lawyers and the private detectives he set after me, I was glad to get out of the city alive. It was two years before I dared come back--and a rough two years they were too! But you"re not raking that up against me at this late date, are you?"
"I"m not," says I. "Any move I make will be for your good. But Steele"s the man. I"ll have to call him in."
"Call away, then," says she. "I ain"t afraid of him, either."
And by luck I catches J. Bayard at his hotel and gets him on the "phone.
"Well?" says I. "How about the fair Josie?"
I could hear him groan over the wire. "Hang Josie!" says he. "See here, McCabe, I"ve had a deuce of a time with that case. Must have been something wrong with the address, you know."
"How"s that?" says I.
"Why," says he, "it led me to a smelly, top-floor flat up in Harlem, and all I could find there was this impossible person, Mrs. Fletcher Shaw.
Of all the sniveling, lying, vicious-tongued old harridans! Do you know what she did? Chased me down four flights of stairs with a broom, just because I insisted on seeing Josie Vernon!"
"You don"t say!" says I. "And you such a star at this knight-errant business! Still want to see Josie, do you?"
"Why, of course," says he.
"Then come down to the studio," says I. "She"s here."
"Wha-a-at!" he gasps. "I--I"ll be right down."
And inside of ten minutes he swings in, all dolled up elegant with a pink carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole. You should have seen the smile come off his face, though, when he sees what"s occupyin" my desk chair. He"d have done a sneak back through the door too, if I hadn"t blocked him off.
"Steady there, J. Bayard!" says I. "On the job, now!"
"But--but this isn"t Josie Vernon," says he. "It"s that Mrs.----"
"One and the same," says I. "The lady says so herself. She"s proved it too."
"I had you sized up as a police spotter," puts in Mrs. Shaw, "trying to get me for palm reading. Thought you might have run across one of my cards. Josie Vernon"s the name I use on them. Sorry if I was too free with the broom."
"I was merely returning to tell you, Madam," says Steele, "that I had discovered you to be an impostor. Those five children you claimed as yours did not belong to you at all. The janitor of the building informed me that----"
"Yes, I heard him through the dumb-waiter shaft," says Mrs. Shaw. "But I always borrow some youngsters for my poor widow act when I think I"m being shadowed; so you needn"t get peeved."
"Of course not. How silly of him!" I puts in. "There, Steele, that"s all straightened out, and here is the original Josie Vernon. What have you got to suggest?"
He stares at me blank, and then takes another look at Mrs. Shaw. I"ll admit she wa"n"t a fascinatin" sight.
"You don"t mean," says he, whisperin" husky in my ear, "that you would do anything for such a creature?"
"She"s on the list, ain"t she?" says I.
"Ye-e-es," he admits; "but----"
"Let"s ask the lady herself for a few more details, so we can have something definite to go on," says I. "Excuse us, Mrs. Shaw, for this little side debate; but we ain"t quite made up our minds about you yet.
Let"s see--you was tellin" me about bringin" a breach of promise suit against Pyramid, and how he ran you out of town. You had a good case too, I expect?"
"What"s the use of lying about it now?" says she. "It was a cheap bluff, that"s all; one of Mr. Shaw"s brilliant schemes. Oh, he was a schemer, Shaw was! Pretended to be a lawyer, Fletcher did, in those days. He was smooth enough for one, but too lazy. I didn"t know that when I married him. What I didn"t know about him then! But I learned. He thought he could scare Mr. Gordon into settling for a few thousand. Of course my claim was all bosh. Pyramid Gordon hardly knew I was in his office.
Besides, I was married, anyway. He didn"t guess that. But the bluff didn"t work. We were the ones who were scared; scared stiff, too."
"H-m-m-m!" says I. "Not what you might call a pretty affair, was it?"
Mrs. Shaw don"t wince at that. She just sneers cynical. "Life with Fletcher Shaw wasn"t pretty at any stage of the game," says she. "Say, you don"t think I picked my career, do you? True, I was only a girl; but I wasn"t quite a fool. You will laugh, I suppose, but at twenty-two I had dreams, ambitions. I meant to be a woman doctor. I was teaching physiology and chemistry in a high school up in Connecticut, where I was born. In another year I could have begun my medical course. Then Fletcher came along, with his curly brown hair, his happy, careless smile, and his fascinating way of avoiding the truth. I gave up all my hopes and plans to go with him. That"s what a woman does when she marries. I don"t know why it should be so, but it is. Take my case: I had more brains, more energy, more character, than he. But he was a man; so I had to live his life. A rotten sort of life it was. And when it was over--well, look at me. I"ve learned to drink gin and to make a living as a fortune-teller. And the worst of it is, I don"t care who knows it.
Wanted details, didn"t you? Well, you"ve got "em."
I glances at J. Bayard, and finds him lookin" the other way with his lip curled. You couldn"t blame him so much. Listenin" to a female party tell the story of her life ain"t inspirin", and we"re all apt to duck things of that kind. They may be true; but it"s easier and pleasanter to look the other way. As for me, I want to, but can"t. I just got to take things as they are and as they come. Forgettin" weeds in the back yard don"t get rid of "em. I"m apt to paw around and see where the roots spread to.
Meanwhile J. Bayard has stepped over by the window and signals me to follow. "Disgusting, isn"t it?" says he. "And you see by this creature"s own story that she doesn"t deserve a penny of Pyramid"s money. He was fooled by her, that"s all."
"Not Pyramid," says I. "Didn"t he have her married name on the slip too?
So he must have found out."
"That"s so," says Steele. "Well, suppose we give her fifty or so, and ship her off."
"That"s kind of small, considerin" the pile we got to draw on, ain"t it!" says I. "And it strikes me that since Pyramid put her name down he meant---- Let"s see if there ain"t something special she wants."
"Say," sings out Mrs. Shaw, "what about that will business? If it was old Gordon, I suppose he wouldn"t leave me much. He had no call to."
"About what would you expect, now?" says I, as we drifts back to her.