"Go back into your cell and sit there until I come. Do not worry if I am away longer than I expect, and do not be frightened when the key is turned on you. It is best that you be locked up for a while. You should give thanks to G.o.d, my dear woman, that I have found you."

Chapter XXI

The news of Mike's arrest had been received by kitty's neighbors with varying degrees of indifference. Everybody realized that, as the run-over boy had lost nothing but his breath--and but little of that, judging from his vigorous howl when Mike picked him up--nothing would come of the affair so long as the present captain ruled the precinct.

Kitty and John and all who belonged to them were too popular around the station; too many of the boys had slipped in and slipped out of a cold night, warmed up by the contents of her coffee-pot.

Indeed, between the captain and the denizens of "The Avenue," only the most friendly, amicable, and delightful personal relations prevailed. To the habitual criminal, the sneak-thief, and the hold-up, he might be a mailed despot swinging a mailed fist, but to the occasional "Monday drunk," or the man who had had the best or the worst of it in a fight, or to one like Mike who was the victim of an unavoidable accident, he was only a heathen idol of justice behind which sat a big-waisted, tightly belted man whose wife and daughters everybody knew as he himself knew everybody in return; who belonged to the same lodge, played poker in the same up-stairs room when off duty, and was as tender-hearted in time of trouble as any one of their other acquaintances. Not to have allowed Mike, a man he knew, a man who had been Kitty and John's driver for years, to hunt up his own bond, would have been as unwise and impossible as his releasing a burglar on straw bail, or a murderer because the dead man could not make a complaint.

When, therefore, Mike burst into the kitchen with the additional information that "the cap" had let him go to bring back the wagon and somebody with "cash" enough to go bail, a general movement, headed by Tim Kelsey, who happened to be pa.s.sing at the time, was immediately organized--Tim to proceed at once to the station-house, take the captain on one side, and so end the matter. Locking up Mike, even threatening him, was, as the captain knew, an invasion of the rights of "The Avenue." n.o.body within its confines had ever been entangled in the meshes of the law--simply because n.o.body had wanted to break it. It was the howling boy who should have been locked up for getting under Mike's wheels, or his father who ought to have kept his son off the street.

Mike listened impatiently to the discussion and, watching his chance, beckoned to Kitty, shut the door upon the two, and poured into her ear a full account of what he had seen and heard at the station-house.

"Well, what's that got to do with it?" Kitty demanded. "What did she have to do with the boy?"

"Nothing, don't I tell ye--she's been swipin' a department store, and they got her dead to rights."

"Who's been swipin'? What are ye talkin' about, Mike? Stop it now--I've got a lot to do, and--"

"The woman ye put to bed that night. The one ye picked up near St.

Barnabas, and brought in here and dried her off. She skipped in the mornin' without sayin' 'thank ye'--why, ye must remember her! She was--"

Kitty clapped her two palms to her face, framing her bulging eyes--a favorite gesture when she was taken completely by surprise.

"That woman!" she cried, staring at Mike. "Where is she now? Tell me--"

"I don't know--but she--"

"Ye don't know, and ye come down here with this yarn? Don't ye try and fool me, Mike, or I'll break every bone in yer skin. Go on, now! How do ye know it's the same woman?"

"I'm tellin' ye no lies. Come back with me and see for yerself. The cap will let ye go down and talk to her. I heard Father Cruse tell ye to keep an eye out for her if she ever came around here agin. Ye got to hurry or they'll have her in the Black Maria on the way to the Tombs.

Bunky told me so."

Kitty stood in deep meditation. She remembered that Mike had been in the kitchen when the woman sat by the stove. She remembered, too, that Father Cruse had cautioned her to send word to the rectory if the poor creature came again and, if there were not time to reach him, then to tell Mr. O'Day. That the priest had not run across the woman at the station-house was evident, or he would have sent word by Mike. She would herself find out and then act.

"But ye must have seen Father Cruse. Did he send any word?"

"Yes, he come in just as I was leavin'. It was him who told me to be sure to hurry back. See the horse gits some water, will ye? I got to go back."

"Hold on--what did the Father say about the woman?"

"Nothin', don't I tell ye?--he didn't see her. They'd locked her up before he came."

"Why didn't ye tell him who it was?"

"How was I a-goin' to tell him when the cap told me to git?"

"Go on, then, wid ye! If the Father's still there, tell him I'm a-comin'

up, and will bring Mr. O'Day wid me, and to hold on till I get there."

She took her wraps from a peg behind the door, threw it wide, and joined her neighbors in the office, composing her face as best she could.

"I've got to go over to Otto Kling's," she announced bluntly, without any attempt at apologies. "Some one of ye must go up and bail Mike out--any one of ye will do. Mr. Kelsey spoke first, so maybe he'd better go. I'd go myself and sign the bond only I'm no good, for I don't own a blessed thing in the world, except the shoes I stand in--and they're half-soled and not paid for; John's got the rest. I'll be there later on, ye can tell the captain. Mr. Codman, please send over one of your boys to mind my place. John ain't turned up and won't for an hour. That trunk went to Astoria instead of the Astor House, bad 'cess to it, and that's about as far apart as it could git. And, Mike, don't stand there with yer tongue out! And don't let Toodles go with ye. Get back as quick as ye can--and tell the captain to make it easy for me, that if the boy's badly hurt I'll go and nurse him if he ain't got anybody to take care of him. Git out, ye varmint--thank ye, Tim Kelsey, I'll do as much for you next time ye have to go to jail. Good-by"--and she kept on to Kling's.

Otto's store was full of customers when Kitty strode in. Even little Masie had been pressed into service to help on with the sales, as well as one of the "Dutchies" whom Kling had brought up from the cellar. The few remaining hours of the old year were fast disappearing and the crowd of buyers, intent on securing some small remembrance for those they loved, or more important gifts with which to welcome the New Year, thronged the store and upper floor.

Kitty made straight for Felix, who was leaning over the low counter, absorbed in the sale of some old silver. His disappointment over Kling's rebuff regarding Masie's future had been greatly lightened, relieved by his talk with Father Cruse an hour before, and he had again thrown himself into his work with a determination to make the last days of the year a success for his employer,--all the more necessary when he remembered his plans for the child. The customer, an important one, was trying to make up her mind as to the choice between two pieces, and Felix was evidently intent on not hurrying her.

He had seen Kitty when she opened the door and approached the counter, had noticed her excitement when she stopped in front of him, and knew that something out of the ordinary had sent her to him at this, the busiest part of his own and her day. But his only sign of recognition was the lift of an eyelid and a slight movement of his hand, the palm turned toward her, a gesture which told as plainly as could be that, while he was glad to see her--something she was never in doubt of--the present moment was ill adapted to protracted conversation.

Kitty, however, was not built on diplomatic lines. What she wanted she wanted at once. When she had something vital to accomplish she went straight at it, and certainly nothing more vital than her present mission had come her way for weeks.

That the news she carried had something to do with O'Day's happiness, she was convinced, or Father Cruse would not have been so insistent.

That the woman herself was, in some way, connected with his misfortunes, she also suspected--and had done so, in reality, ever since the night on which she gave him the sleeve-links. She had not said so to John; she had not hinted as much to Father Cruse; but she had never dismissed the possibility from her mind.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," she said, ignoring Felix and going straight to the cause of the embargo, "but couldn't ye let me have Mr. O'Day for a few minutes? I've somethin' very partic'lar to say to him."

"Why, Mistress Kitty--" began Felix, smiling at her audacity, the customer also regarding her with amused curiosity.

"Yes, Mr. O'Day, I wouldn't b.u.t.t in if I could help it. Excuse me, ma'am, but there's Otto just got loose, and--Otto, come over here and take care of this lady who is goin' to let me have Mr. O'Day for half an hour. Thank ye, ma'am, you don't know me, but I'm Kitty Cleary, the expressman's wife, from across the street, and I'm always mixin' in where I don't belong and I know ye'll forgive me. Otto'll charge ye twice the price Mr. O'Day would, but he can't help it because he's Dutch. Oh, Otto, I know ye!"

Felix laughed outright. "Thank you, Mr. Kling," he said, yielding his place to his employer, "and if you will excuse me, madam," and he bowed to his customer, "I will see what it is all about--and now, Mistress Kitty, what can I do for you?"

Kitty backed away toward the door, so that a huge wardrobe shielded her from Otto and his customer.

"Come near, Mr. O'Day," she whispered, all her forced humor gone. "I've got the woman who dropped the sleeve-b.u.t.tons."

Felix swayed unsteadily, and gripped a chair-back for support.

"You've got--the woman--What do you mean?" he said at last.

"Mike saw her at the police-station. They've put her in a cell."

"Arrested?"

"Yes, for stealin'."

Involuntarily his fingers brushed his throat as if he were choking, but no words came. He had been all his life accustomed to surprises, some of them appalling, but against this, for the instant, he had no power to stand.

Kitty stood watching the quivering of his lips and the drawn, strained muscles about his jaw and neck as his will power whipped them back to their normal shape. She was convinced now of the truth of her suspicions--the woman was not only interwoven with his past, but was closely identified with his present anguish.

She drew closer, her voice rising. "Ye'll go with me, won't ye, Mr. Felix?" she went on, hiding under an a.s.sumed indifference all recognition of his struggle. "Father Cruse told me if I ever come across her again, and there wasn't time to get hold of him, to let ye know."

"I will go anywhere, where Father Cruse thinks I should, Mrs.

Cleary--especially in cases of this kind, where I may be of use." The words had come from between partly closed lips; his hands were still tightly clinched. "And you say she was arrested--for stealing?"