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"You remember the man, then?" interrupted the detective, following up his advantage, and again scraping his chin with his forefinger. "Oh, yes. I don't forgot him. Vore a buttoned-up coat high like up to his chin " "And a slouch-hat?" prompted Pickert. "Yes, vun of dose soft hats, for I tink de light hurt his eyes ven he come close up to my desk ven I gif him de money."
Martha eyed the cluster of balls suspended above the door, and occupied herself with a cursory examination of the contents of the front window, to none of which, she said to herself, would she have given house-room had the choice of the whole collection been offered her. She was about to march into the shop and end the protracted interview when Pickert flung himself out.
It won't cut any ice here, and you'd better not talk. Now come along, and don't make any fuss. If it's a mistake, you can clear it up at the station-house. I ain't going to touch you. You keep ahead until you get to the street-door. I'll be right behind, and meet you on the sidewalk." Lady Barbara drew herself up proudly. "I won't allow it!" she cried; "what I told you " Pickert swaggered closer.
Pickert examined his finger-nails for a brief moment one seemed in need of immediate repairs his mind all the while in deep thought. The tramp might help or he might not. He evidently knew him, and it was possible that he also knew Stanton, the name borne by the woman charged with the theft; or the whole yarn might be a ruse to give the real thief a tip, and thus block everything.
The group in front of the captain's desk disintegrated. The woman, still silent, was led away to the cell. Rosenthal's clerk, who had made the charge for the firm, had come round to the captain's side of the desk to sign some papers. Pickert and the officer had already disappeared through the street-door. At this juncture the priest entered.
"No, I didn't say it. I said he was a cur and that she wouldn't go to jail to please him that's what I said. Now, young man, if you're through, I am. I've got to get my work done." Pickert tilted his hat to the other side of his bullet head, felt in his side pocket for a cigar, bit off the end, and spat the crumbs of tobacco from his lips.
Pickert, with a swift, comprehensive glance, summed up the apartment and its contents: the little table by the window with Lady Barbara's work-basket; the small stove, and pine table set out with the breakfast things; the cheap chairs; the dresser with its array of china, and the two bedrooms opening out of the modest interior.
Martha hesitated for an instant, abandoned her decision, and retied her bonnet-strings; she might find her mistress the quicker if she acceded to his request. She stepped to the stove, examined the fire to see that it was all right, added a shovel of coal and, with Pickert at her heels, groped her way down the dingy stairs, her fingers following the handrail.
Pickert retreated slightly at this new development; then asked sharply: "Dalton! Who's Dalton?" "The meanest cur that ever walked the earth that's who he is. He's almost killed my poor lady, and now she must go to jail to please him. Not if I'm alive, she won't. He stole that mantilla! I'm just as sure of it as I am that my name is Martha Munger!" Pickert's high tension relaxed.
But for this uncertainty, and the possible consequences of such a procedure, she would have thrown open her door and ordered him out as she had done Dalton. Then, seeing that Pickert still maintained his attitude that of a setter-dog with the bird in the line of his nose she added testily: "Don't stand there staring at me. Take a chair where I can talk to you better. You get on my nerves.
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