Felix O'Day Part 36

"Yes, shopliftin', they call it. Poor creatures, they get that miserable and trodden on they don't know right from wrong!"

Then, as if to give him time in which to recover himself fully, she went on, speaking rapidly: "And, after all, it may only be a put-up job or a mistake. Half the women they pinch in them big stores ain't reg'lar thieves. They get tempted, or they can't find anybody to tell 'em the price o' things, especially these holiday times, and they carry 'em round from counter to counter, and along comes a store detective and nabs 'em with the goods on 'em. They did that to me once, over at Cryder's, and I told him I'd knock him down if he put his hand on me, and somebody come along who knew me, and they was that scared when they found out who I was that they bowed and sc.r.a.ped like dancin' masters and wanted me to take the skirt along if I'd say nothin' about it. That might have happened to this poor child--"

"Has Father Cruse seen her?" asked Felix. No word of the recital had reached his ears.

"No--that's why I come to ye."

"And where did you say she was?" He had himself under perfect control again, and might have been a man bent only on aiding Father Cruse in some charitable work.

"Locked up in the station-house not far from here. It won't take ye ten minutes to get there."

Felix glanced at the big-faced clock, facing the side window of the store.

"Yes, of course I will go, since Father Cruse wishes it. Thank you for bringing his message. You need not wait."

"Needn't wait! Ye're not goin' one step without me. They'd chuck ye out if ye did, and that's what they won't do to me if the captain's in his office. Besides, Mike run over a boy, and Tim Kelsey is up there now standin' bail for him. There's no use goin' unless ye see her. That's what the Father wanted ye to do, and that ain't easy unless ye've got the run of the station. So, ye see, I got to go with ye whether ye want me or not, or ye won't get nowheres. I'll wait till ye get yer hat and coat."

All the way to the station-house, Kitty beside him, Felix was putting into silent words the thoughts that raced through his mind.

"Barbara arrested as a vulgar thief!" he kept saying over and over.

"A woman brought up a lady--with the best blood of England in her veins--her father a man of distinction! The woman I married!"

Then, as a jagged thread of light breaks away from a centre bolt, illuminating a distant cloud, a faint ray cheered him. Perhaps the woman was not Barbara. No one had any proof. Father Cruse had never believed it, and he had only argued himself into thinking that the woman who had dropped the sleeve-link must be his wife. Until he knew definitely, saw her with his own eyes, neither would HE believe it, and a certain shame of his own suspicion swept through him like a flame.

The captain was out when the two reached the station. Nor was there any one who knew Kitty except a departing patrolman, who nodded to her pleasantly as she pa.s.sed in, adding in a whisper the information that Mike and Kelsey had gone up to Magistrate Ca.s.sidy, who held court in the next block, and that she was "not to worry," as it was "all right."

A new appointee--a lieutenant she had never seen before--was temporarily in charge of the station.

"I'm Mrs. Cleary," she began, in her free, outspoken way, "and this is Mr. Felix O'Day."

The new appointee stared and said nothing.

"Ye never saw me before, but that wouldn't make any difference if the captain was around. But ye can find out about me from any one of yer men who knows me. I'm here with Mr. O'Day lookin' up a woman who was brought here this morning for stealin' some finery or whatever it was from one of these big stores--and we want to see her, if ye plaze."

The lieutenant shook his head. "Can't see no prisoner without the captain's orders."

Kitty bridled, but she kept her temper. "When will he be back?"

"Six o'clock. He's gone to headquarters."

"He'd let me see her if he was here," she retorted, with some asperity.

"No doubt--but I can't." All this time he had not changed his position--his arms on the desk, his fingers drumming idly.

Felix rested his hands on the rail fronting the desk. "May I ask if you saw the woman?"

"No. I only came on half an hour ago."

"Is there any one here who did see her?"

Something in O'Day's manner and in the incisive tones of his voice, those of command not supplication, made the lieutenant change his position. The speaker might have a "pull" somewhere. He turned to the sergeant. "You were on duty. What did she look like?"

The sergeant yawned from behind his hand. He had been up most of the previous night and was some hours behind his sleep schedule. Kitty's presence had not roused him but the self-possessed man could not be ignored.

"You mean the girl who got Rosenthal's lace?" he answered.

"You're dead right," returned the lieutenant obligingly. He had, of course, always been ready to do what he could for people in trouble, and was so now.

"Oh, about as they all look." This time the sergeant directed his remarks to Felix. "We get two or three of 'em every day, specially about Christmas and New Year's. Rather run down at the heel, this one, and--no, come to think of it, I'm wrong--she looked different. Been a corker in her time--not bad now--about thirty, I guess--maybe younger--you can't always tell. Rather slim--had on a black-straw hat and some kind of a cloak."

Kitty was about to freshen his memory with some remembrance of her own, and had got as far as, "Well, my man Mike was here and he told me that--" when Felix lifted a restraining hand, supplementing her outburst by the direct question: "Did she say nothing about herself?"

"She did not. All we could get out of her was that she was English."

Felix bent nearer. "Will you please describe her a little closer? I have a reason for knowing."

The sergeant caught the look of determination, dallied with a tin paper-cutter, bent his head on one side, and pursed a pair of thick lips. It was a strain on his memory, this recalling the features of one of a dozen prisoners, but somehow he dared not refuse.

"Well, she was one of the pocket kind of women, small and well put up but light built, you know. She had blue eyes--big ones--I noticed 'em partic'lar--and about the smallest pair of feet I ever seen on a girl.

She stumbled down-stairs and caught her dress, and I remember they was about as big as a kid's. That was another thing set me to wondering how she got into a sc.r.a.pe like this. She could have done a lot better if she had a-wanted to," this last came with a leer.

Felix clenched his teeth, and drove his nails into the palms of his hands. He would have throttled the man had he dared.

"Did she make any defense?" he asked, when he had himself under control again.

"No--there warn't no use--she owned up to having pinched it. Not here at the desk, but to Rosenthal's man who made the charge--that is, she didn't deny it. The stuff was worth $250. That's a felony, you know."

Kitty saw Felix sway for an instant, and was about to put out a protecting hand when he turned again to the lieutenant.

"Officer, I do not ask you to break your rules, but I would consider it an especial favor if you would let me see this woman for a moment--even if you do not permit me to speak to her."

"Well, you can't see her." The reply came with some positiveness and a slight touch of irony. He had made up his mind now that if the speaker had a pull, he would meet it by keeping strictly to the regulations.

"Why not?"

"Because she ain't here. She's in the Tombs by this time, unless somebody went her bail up at court. They had her in the patrol-wagon as I come on duty."

"The Tombs? That is the city prison, is it not?" Felix asked, hardly conscious of his own question, absorbed only in one thought--Lady Barbara's degradation.

"That's what it is," answered the lieutenant with a contemptuous glance at Felix, followed by a curl of the lip. No man had a pull who asked a question like that.

"If I went there, could I see her?"

"When?"

"This afternoon."

"Nothin' doin'--too late. You might work it to-morrow. Step down to headquarters, they'll tell you. If she's up for felony it means five years and them kind ain't easy to see. Can I do anything more for you?"