In the Bishop's Carriage Part 31

"You'll take this girl into the other room and search her thoroughly.

The thing we're looking for--" The Sergeant turned to Tausig.

"A small paper," he said eagerly. "A--a contract--just a single sheet of legal cap paper it was type-written and signed by myself and some other gentlemen, and folded twice."

The woman looked at me. She was a bit hard-mouthed, with iron-gray hair, but her eyes looked as though they'd seen a lot and learned not to flinch, though they still felt like it. I knew that kind of look--I'd seen it at the Cruelty.

"What an unpleasant job this of yours is," I said to her, smiling up at her for all the world as that tike of a baby had smiled at me, and watching her melt just as I had. "I'll not make it a bit harder. This thing's all a mistake. Which way? ... I'll come back, Mr. Tausig, to receive your apology, but you can hardly expect me to go to lunch after this."

He growled a wrathful, resenting mouthful. But he looked a bit puzzled just the same.

He looked more puzzled yet, even bewildered, when we came back into the main office a quarter of an hour later, the woman and I, and she reported that no paper of any kind had she found.

Me? Oh, I was sweet amiability personified with the woman and with the Sergeant, who began to back-water furiously. But with Tausig--

What? You don't mean to say you're not on, Mag? Oh, dear, dear, it's well you had that beautiful wig of red hair that puts even Carter's in the shade; for you'd never have been a success in--in other businesses I might name.

Bamboozled the woman? Not a bit of it; you can't deceive women with mouths and eyes like that. It was just that I'd had a flash of genius in the minute I heard Tausig's voice, and in spite of my being so sure he wouldn't have me arrested I'd-- Guess, Mag, guess! There was only one way.

The baby, of course! In the moment I had--it wasn't long--I'd stooped down, pretending to kiss that cherub good-by, and in a jiffy I'd pinned that precious paper with a safety-pin to the baby's under-petticoat, preferring that risk to--

Risk! I should say it was. And now it was up to Nance to make good.

While Tausig insisted and explained and expostulated and at last walked out with the Sergeant--giving me a queer last look that was half-cursing, half-placating--I stood chatting sweetly with the woman who had searched me.

I didn't know just how far I might go with her. She knew the paper wasn't on me, and I could see she was disposed to believe I was as nice as she'd have liked me to be. But she'd had a lot of experience and she knew, as most women do even without experience, that if there's not always fire where there is smoke, it's because somebody's been clever enough and quick enough to cover the blaze.

"Well, good-by," I said, putting out my hand. "It's been disagreeable but I'm obliged to you for--why, where's my purse! We must have left it--" And I turned to go back into the room where I'd undressed.

"You didn't have any."

The words came clear and cold and positive. Her tone was like an icicle down my back.

"I didn't have any!" I exclaimed. "Why, I certainly--"

"You certainly had no purse, for I should have seen it and searched it if you had."

Now, what do you think of a woman like that?

"Nancy Olden," I said to myself, more in sorrow than in anger, "you've met your match right here. When a woman knows a fact and states it with such quiet conviction, without the least unnecessary emphasis and not a superfluous word, 'ware that woman. There's only one game to play to let you hang round here a bit longer and find out what's become of the baby. Play it!"

I looked at her with respect; it was both real and feigned.

"Of course, you must be right," I said humbly. "I know you wouldn't be likely to make a mistake, but, just to convince me, do you mind letting me go back to look?"

"Not at all," she said placidly. "If I go with you there's no reason why you should not look."

Oh, Mag, it was hard lines looking. Why?--Why, because the place was so bare and so small. There were so few things to move and it took such a short time, in spite of all I could do and pretend to do, that I was in despair.

"You must be right," I said at length, looking woefully up at her.

"Yes; I knew I was," she said steadily.

"I must have lost it."

"Yes."

There was no hope there. I turned to go.

"I'll lend you a nickel to get home, if you'll leave me your address,"

she said after a moment.

Oh, that admirable woman! She ought to be ruling empires instead of searching thieves. Look at the balance of her, Mag. My best acting hadn't shaken her. She hadn't that fatal curiosity to understand motives that wrecks so many who deal with--we'll call them the temporarily un-straight. She was satisfied just not to let me get ahead of her in the least particular. But she wasn't mean, and she would lend me a nickel--not an emotionally extravagant ten-cent piece, but just a nickel--on the chance that I was what I seemed to be.

Oh, I did admire her; but I'd have been more enthusiastic about it if I could have seen my way clear to the baby and the paper.

I took the nickel and thanked her, but effusiveness left her unmoved.

A wholesome, blue-gowned rock with a neat, full-bibbed white ap.r.o.n; that's what she was!

And still I lingered. Fancy Nance Olden just heartbroken at being compelled to leave a police station!

But there was nothing for it. Go, I had to. My head was a-whirl with schemes coming forward with suggestions and being dismissed as unsuitable; my thoughts were flying about at such a dizzy rate while I stood there in the doorway, the woman's patient hand on the k.n.o.b and her watchful eyes on me, that I actually--

Mag, I actually didn't hear the matron's voice the first time she spoke.

The second time, though, I turned--so happy I could not keep the tremor out of my voice.

"I thought you had gone long ago," she said.

Oh, we were friends, we two! We'd chummed over a baby, which for women is like what taking a drink together is for men. The admirable dragon in the blue dress didn't waver a bit because her superior spoke pleasantly to me. She only watched and listened.

Which puts you in a difficult position when your name's Nance Olden--you have to tell the truth.

"I've been detained," I said with dignity, "against my wish. But that's all over. I'm going now. Good-by." I nodded and caught up my skirt.

"Oh!" I paused just as the admirable dragon was closing the door on me. "Is the baby asleep? I wonder if I might see her once more."

My heart was beating like an engine gone mad, in spite of my careless tone, and there was a buzzing in my ears that deafened me. But I managed to stand still and listen, and then to walk off, as though it didn't matter in the least to me, while her words came smas.h.i.+ng the hope out of me.

"We've sent her with an officer back to the neighborhood where you found her. He'll find out where she belongs, no doubt. Good day."

XV.

Ah me, Maggie, the miserable Nance that went away from that station!

To have had your future in your grasp, like that one of the Fates with the string, and then to have it s.n.a.t.c.hed from you by an impish breeze and blown away, goodness knows where!

I don't know just which way I turned after I left that station. I didn't care where I went. Nothing I could think of gave me any comfort. I tried to fancy myself coming home to you. I tried to see myself going down to tell the whole thing to Obermuller. But I couldn't do that. There was only one thing I wanted to say to Fred Obermuller, and that thing I couldn't say now.