The Big-Town Round-Up Part 6

"Sho! Folks are mostly reasonable. I'd tell the judge how it come about."

"No."

"Well, I can't stay here."

"Yes--till they've gone."

Her imperative warmed his heart, but he tried to explain gently why he could not. "I can't drag you into this. Like as not the Swede saw me come in."

To a manservant standing in the background the young woman spoke.

"Jenkins, have Nora clean up the floor and the steps outside. And remember--I don't want the police to know this gentleman is here."

"Yes, Miss."

"Come!" said the girl to her guest. She led Clay to the ma.s.sive stairway, but stopped at the first tread to call back an order over her shoulder. "Refer the officers to me if they insist on coming into the house."

"I'll see to it, Miss."

Clay followed his hostess to the stairs and went up them with her, but he went protesting, though with a chuckle of mirth. "He sure ruined my clothes a heap. I ain't fit to be seen."

The suit he had been so proud of was shrinking so that his arms and legs stuck out like signposts. The color had run and left the goods a peculiar bilious-looking overall blue.

She lit a gas-log in a small library den.

"Just a minute, please."

She stepped briskly from the room. In her manner was a crisp decision, in her poise a trim gallantry that won him instantly.

"I'll bet she'd do to ride with," he told himself in a current Western idiom.

When she came back it was to take him to a dressing-room. A complete change of clothing was laid out for him on a couch. A man whom Clay recognized as a valet--he had seen his duplicate in the moving-picture theaters at Tucson--was there to supply his needs and attend to the temperature of his bath.

"Stevens will look after you," she said; "when you are ready come back to Dad's den."

His eyes followed to the door her resilient step. Once, when he was a boy, he had seen Ada Rehan play in "As You Like It." Her acting had entranced him. This girl carried him back to that hour. She was boyish as Rosalind, woman in every motion of her slim and lissom body.

At the head of the stairway she paused. Jenkins was moving hurriedly up to meet her.

"It's a policeman, Miss. 'E's come about the--the person that came in, and 'e's talkin' to Nora on the steps. She's a-jollyin' 'im, as you might say, Miss."

His young mistress nodded. She swept the hall with the eye of a general. Swiftly she changed the position of a Turkish rug so as to hide a spot on the polished floor that had been recently scrubbed and was still moist. It seemed best to discover Nora's plan of campaign before taking over the charge of affairs.

"Many's the time I've met yuh goin' down the Avenoo with your heels clickin' an' your head high," came the rich brogue of Nora O'Flannigan.

"An' I've said to myself, sez I, who's the handsome officer that sets off his uniform so gr-rand?"

The girl leaned on her mop and gave the policeman a slant glance out of eyes of Irish brown. It was not Nora's fault that she was as pretty a colleen as ever came out of Limerick, but there was no law that made her send such a roguish come-hither look at the man in blue.

He beamed. He was as pleased as a cat that has been stroked and fed cream.

"Well, an' yuh 're not the only wan that notices, Miss Nora. I'm a noticin' lad mesilf. An' it's the truth that I'd be glad enough to meet yuh some fine evenin' when I'm off duty. But about this strong-arm guy that tied up the janitor. The Swede says he went into wan av these houses. Now here's the wet color from his suit that ran over the steps. He musta come up here."

"Before he ran down the street. Sure, an' that's just what he done.

Yuh're a janious, officer."

"Maybe he got into the house somehow."

"Now, how could he do that? With all av us upstairs and down."

"I don't say he did. But if I was to just take a look inside so as to report that I'd searched--"

"Och! Yuh 'd be wastin' your time, officer."

"Sure, I know that. But for the report--"

The young woman in the riding costume chose this moment to open the door and saunter out.

"Does the officer want something, Nora?" she asked innocently, switching the end of a crop against her riding-boots.

"Yes, Miss. There's been a ruffian batin' up Swedes an' tyin' 'em to posts. This officer thinks he came here," explained Nora.

"Does he want to look in the house?"

"Yes, Miss."

"Then let him come in." The young mistress took the responsibility on her own shoulders. She led the policeman into the hall. "I don't really see how he could have got in here without some of us seeing him, officer."

"No, ma'am. I don't see how he could." The patrolman scratched his red head. "The janitor's a Swede, anyhow. He jist guessed it. I came to make sure av it. I'll be sorry for troubling yuh, Miss."

The smile she gave him was warm and friendly. "Oh, that's all right.

If you'd care to look around. . . . But there really is no use."

"No." The forehead under the red thatch wrinkled in thought. "He said he seen him come in here or next door, an' he came up the steps. But n.o.body could have got in without some of youse seein' him. That's a lead pipe." The officer pushed any doubt that remained from his mind.

"Only a muddle-headed Swede."

"It was good of you to come. It makes us feel safer to have officers like you. If you'll give me your name I'll call up the precinct captain and tell him so."

The man in uniform turned beet red. "McGuffey, Miss, and it's a pleasure to serve the likes of yuh," he said, pleased and embarra.s.sed.

He bowed himself out backward, skidded on the polished floor, and saved himself from going down by a frantic fling of arms and some fancy skating. When he recovered, his foot caught in a rug and wadded it to a knot.

Nora giggled behind her fingers, but her mistress did not even smile at the awkwardness of Patrolman McGuffey.

"Thank you _so_ much," she said sweetly.

CHAPTER V