He was taken unawares, but she could detect no relaxation in his strong face; on the contrary, it set more grimly.

"And what are you up to?" he asked.

"To find the proof for myself, and get ahead of Jim Broderick."

"I know of no one so convinced of Mrs. Balfame's guilt as Broderick."

"That's all right, but a man with as keen a scent as that is likely to find the real trail any minute."

"And you believe I did it?"

"I think there are reasons for believing it."

"I won't ask you for them. It doesn't matter, particularly. What interests me is to know whether you believe that if I had committed the crime of murder I would let a woman suffer in my stead."

Miss Austin cerebrated.

"No," she admitted unwillingly, "you don't strike one as that sort. But then you might argue that she is reasonably sure of acquittal and you would have scant hope of escaping the chair."

Rush laughed aloud. It was a harsh sound, but there was no nervousness in it, and he continued to look interrogatively at Miss Austin. He had barely noticed her before, but he observed that she was a handsome girl with a clean-cut honest face, a bright detecting eye, and the slim well-set-up figure of an athletic boy. Her peculiar type of good looks was displayed to its best advantage by the smartly tailored suit.

"You hardly look the sort to run a man down," he murmured, and this time he smiled.

"One gets mighty keen on the chase in this business." They turned into the deep shade of Elsinore Avenue, and she stood still and lowered her voice. "If you would tell me," she said, "I'd swear never to betray you."

"Then why ask me to confess?"

"Oh--it sounds rather ba.n.a.l--but I want to write fiction, big fiction, and I want to come up against the big tragedies and secrets of the human soul. If you would tell me the whole story, exactly how you have felt at every stage and phase before and since, I feel almost sure that I could write as big a book as Dostoiewsky's "Crime and Punishment"--not half so long, of course. If we learn from other nations, we can teach them a thing or two in return. You may ask what you are to expect in return for a dangerous confidence. I not only never would betray you, but I'd make it my study to divert suspicion from pointing your way. I could do it, too. You are safe as far as Alys is concerned. The secret is oppressing her terribly, and she's driven by the fear that her conscience will suddenly revolt and force her to speak out--particularly if Mrs. Balfame broke down in jail, to say nothing of a possible conviction--not that I believe anything short of conviction would open her lips. You are the last person on earth she would hand over to the law; it seems odd to me you can't realise that for yourself."

"Realise what?"

"Oh, I've no patience with men! I never did share the plat.i.tudinous belief in propinquity. Why, Alys has turned half the heads in Park Row.

Even the austere city editor is beginning to hover. How any man could pa.s.s a live wire like Alys Crumley by--and distractingly pretty--for a woman old enough to be her mother!"

He caught his breath.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Mrs. Balfame."

"And yet you accuse me of letting her lie in prison bearing the burden of my crime?"

"As the only way to possess her ultimately."

"And how many, may I ask, are saying that I am in love with my client?"

"Not a soul--save, possibly, Alys to herself. She doesn't seem to have much enthusiasm for the Star of Elsinore. Provincial people are too funny for words. Maybe we New Yorkers are also provincial in our tendency to forget there is any other America. I intend to cultivate the open mind; a writer must, I think. So you see just how in earnest I am.

Don't you believe you could trust me? All the world knows that a newspaper person is the safest depository on earth for a secret."

"Oh, I have the most touching confidence in your honour, and the most profound admiration for your candour, and the deepest sympathy for ambitions so natural to one afflicted with genius. I am only wondering whether if I gave you the information you seem to need you would permit Mrs. Balfame to remain in jail and stand trial for her life."

"You are not to laugh at me! Yes, I should. Because I know that she has ninety-nine chances out of a hundred to get off, and that if she were condemned you would come forward at once and tell the truth."

"And you really believe I did it?" His hands were in his pockets, and he was balancing himself on his heels. There was certainly nothing tense about his tall loose figure, but the light of the street lamp, filtered through a low branch, threw shadows on his face that made it look pallid and as darkly hollowed as the face of an elderly actress in a moving picture. To Miss Sarah Austin he looked like a guilty man engaged in the honourable art of bluffing, but her mounting irritation precluded pity.

"Yes, Mr. Rush, I do. It is to my mind the one logical explanation--"

"You mean the logical fictional--"

"I'm no writer of detective stories--"

"Just like a novel then?"

"Ah! That I admit. The great novel is a logical transcript of life. The incidents rise out of the characters, react upon them, are as inevitable as the personal endowments, peculiarities, and contradictions.

Understand your characters, and you can't go wrong."

"You are the cleverest young woman I ever met. For that reason I feel convinced you need no such advent.i.tious aid as confession from a murderer. You will work it out--your premises being dead right--far better by yourself. It's the contradictions you mentioned I am thinking of, both in life and character."

"You are laughing at me. It's no laughing matter!"

"By G.o.d, it isn't. But you couldn't expect me to plump out a confession like that without taking a night to think it over."

"If you don't tell me, I warn you I'll find out for myself. And then I'll give it to my newspaper. To begin with, I'll find out if you really did see any one in Brooklyn that Sat.u.r.day night. I'll discover the name of everybody you know in Brooklyn."

"That's a large order. I fear the case will be over."

"I'll set the whole swarm on the case. But if you will tell me the truth, you will be quite safe."

"The cause of literature might influence me were it not that I fear to be thought a coward--by my fair blackmailer."

"Oh! How dare you? Why, I don't want your secret to use against you. I thought I explained--how dare you!"

"I humbly beg pardon. Perhaps as it is such a new and flattering variety, it deserves a new name. I suppose the legal mind becomes hopelessly automatic in its deductions--"

"Oh, good night!"

They were at the Crumley gate. Rush opened it and pa.s.sed in behind her.

"I think I too will call on Miss Crumley," he said. "I have been too busy to call on any one for weeks, but to-night I must take a rest, and I can imagine no rest so complete as an evening in Miss Crumley's studio. I see a light in there--let us go round and not disturb Mrs.

Crumley."

CHAPTER XXVI

Miss Austin remained but a few moments in the studio. She was embarra.s.sed and angry, and Rush was not the sole object of her wrath: she anathematised herself not only for permitting her literary enthusiasm to carry her to the point of attempting coercion and running the risk of being called bad names by an expert in crime, but for speaking out impulsively in the first place and throwing her cards on the table. It had been her intention to cultivate the wretch's acquaintance and lead him on with excessive subtlety; but he had proved impervious to her maidenly hints that she would like to know him better; equally so to her boyish invitation to come over some evening and meet a number of the newspaper girls who were all fighting for his client.

Fifteen minutes alone with him in the quiet streets of Elsinore at night was an opportunity that might never come again, and she had surrendered to impulse.