Drawing a chair opposite her, and seating myself therein, I fixed my eyes upon her face, and addressed her in a tone half stern, half confidential:

"You are a plucky girl," I began, "and I admire you for that; and when I tell you that I have followed you, or tracked you, from the North, through Amora, through Groveland, down to the Little Adelphi, you will perhaps conjecture that I do not intend to be balked or evaded, even by so smart a little lady as you have proved yourself. I bear you no personal ill-will, and I much dislike to persecute a woman even when she has been guilty of"----

I paused; she made a restless movement, and a look of pain flitted across her face.

"Perhaps we may be able to avoid details," I said, slowly. "I will let you decide that."

"How?" with a gasp of relief or surprise, I could hardly guess which.

"Listen. Some time ago two girls disappeared from a little northern community, and I was one of the detectives employed to find them. I need not go into details, since you know so much about the case. In the course of the investigation, we inquired pretty closely into the character of the company kept by those two young ladies, and learned that a Miss Amy Holmes had been a schoolmate of the missing girls.

Afterward, this same Amy Holmes and a Miss Grace Ballou made an attempt to escape from the Ballou farm house. The scheme was in part frustrated, but Amy Holmes escaped. Mrs. Ballou furnished us with a photo of Miss Amy Holmes, and when I saw it _I knew it_!"

"Ah!"

This time it was an interjection of unmistakable terror. It gave me my cue.

"I knew it for the picture of a young woman who had--committed--a crime; a young woman who would be well received at police headquarters, and I said to myself I will _now_ find this young person who calls herself Amy Holmes."

A look of sullen resolution was settling upon her face. She sat before me with her eyes fixed upon the carpet and her lips tightly closed.

"I have found her," I continued, mercilessly. "And now--shall I take you back with me, a prisoner, and hand you over to the officers of the law, or will you answer truthfully such questions as I shall put to you, and go away from this house a free woman?"

She was so absorbed by her own terror, or so overshadowed by some ghost of the past, that she seemed to take no note of my interest in the Groveland business, except as it had been an incidental aid in hunting her down.

"Do you think I would trust you?" she said, with a last effort at defiance. "You want to make me testify against myself."

"You mistake, or you do not understand. I am at present working in the interest of the Groveland case. My discovery of you was an accident, and my knowledge concerning you I am using as a means toward the elucidation of the mystery surrounding the movements of Mamie Rutger and Nellie Ewing. Mamie Rutger I saw last night at the Little Adelphi. Nellie Ewing is no doubt within reach. I might find them both without your a.s.sistance. It would only require a little more time and a little more trouble; but time just now is precious. I have other business which demands my attention at the North. Therefore, I say, tell me all that you know concerning these two girls--_all_, mind. If you omit one necessary detail, if you fabricate in one particular, I shall know it.

Answer all my questions truthfully. I shall only ask such as concern your knowledge or connection with this Groveland affair. If you do this, you have nothing to fear from me. If you refuse--you are my _prisoner_.

You comprehend me?"

She eyed me skeptically.

"How do I know that you will let me go, after all?" she said.

"You have my promise, and I am a man of my word. You are a woman, and I don't want to arrest you. If you were a man, I should not offer you a chance for escape. Do as I wish and you are free, and if you need a.s.sistance you shall have it. You must choose at once; time presses."

She hesitated a moment, and then said:

"I may as well tell you about the girls, as you seem to know so much, and--I can't be arrested for that."

"Very well! Tell your story, then, truly and without omissions."

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

AMY HOLMES CONFESSES.

"You say that you have seen Mamie Rutger at the theater," began the unwilling narrator, rather ungraciously, "and so I should think you wouldn't need to be told why she ran away from home. She wanted to go on the stage, and so did Nellie Ewing. Every country girl in christendom wants to be an actress, and if she has a pretty face and a decent voice she feels sure that she can succeed. The girls had both been told that they were pretty, and they could both sing, so they ran away to come out at the Little Adelphi.

"Mamie took to the business like a duck to water. Nellie got sick and blue and whimsical, and has not appeared at the theater for several weeks. They live at 349 B---- place."

I made a careful note of the address, and then said:

"Well, proceed."

"Proceed! what more do you want to know? I have told you why they ran away and where to find them."

This was too much. My wrath must have manifested itself in face and voice, for she winced under my gaze and made no further attempt to baffle or evade me.

"I want to know who devised the villainous plot to allure two innocent country girls away from home and friends! Who set you on as decoy and temptress, and what reward did you receive? There are men or scoundrels connected with this affair; who are they; and what means have they used to bring about such a misfortune to the girls and their friends? Tell the _whole_ truth, and remember what I have said. If you evade, omit, equivocate, _I shall know it_!"

"Will you give me time?" she faltered.

"Not ten minutes. Do you want time to telegraph to Arch Brookhouse? It will be useless; he is in the hands of the detectives, and no message can reach him."

"What has Arch done?" she cried, excitedly. "He is not the one to be blamed."

"He has done enough to put him out of the way of mischief. You have seen the last of Arch Brookhouse."

"But Fred is the man who set this thing going!"

"Very likely. And Arch and Louis Brookhouse were the brothers to help him. What about Johnny La Porte and Ed. Dwight? You see I know too much.

There are two officers down-stairs. If you have not finished your story, and told it to my satisfaction, before half-past four, I will call them up and hand you over to them. It is _now_ ten minutes to four."

She favored me with a glance full of impotent hatred, sat quite silent for a long moment, during which I sat before her with a careless glance fixed on my watch.

Then she began:

"I worked at the Little Adelphi over a year ago. There was a hot rivalry between us, the Gayety, and the 'Frolique.' Fred Brookhouse was managing alone then; _Storms_--only came into partnership in the Spring.

"During the winter the Gayety brought out some new attractions,--I mean new to the profession; no old names that had been billed and billed, but young girls with fresh faces and pretty voices. They were new in the business, and the 'old stagers,' especially the faded and cracked-voiced ones, said that they would fail, they would hurt the business. But the managers knew better. They knew that pretty, youthful faces were the things most thought of in the varieties. And the 'freshness' of the new performers was only another attraction to green-room visitors. n.o.body knew where these new girls came from, and n.o.body could find out; but they _drew_, and the Little Adelphi lost customers, who went over to the 'Gayety.'

"Fred Brookhouse was angry, and he began to study how he should outdo the 'Gayety,' and 'put out' the new attractions.

"At the carnival season, Arch and Louis Brookhouse came down; and we got to be very good friends. Do you mean to use anything that I say to make me trouble?" she broke off, abruptly.

"Not if you tell the entire truth and spare n.o.body."

"Then I will tell it just as it happened. Arch and Fred and I were together one day after rehearsal. I was a favorite at the theater, and Fred consulted me sometimes. Fred wanted some fresh attractions, and wondered how they got the new girls at the 'Gayety.' And I told him that I thought they might have been 'recruited.' He did not seem to understand, and I explained that there were managers who paid a commission to persons who would get them young, pretty, bright girls, who could sing a little, for the first part, and for green-room talent.

"I told him that I knew of an old variety actress who went into the country for a few weeks in the Summer, and picked up girls for the variety business. They were sometimes poor girls who 'worked out,' and were glad of a chance to earn an easier living, and sometimes daughters of well-to-do people; girls who were romantic or ambitious, stage-struck, and easily flattered.

"Fred asked me how I knew all this, and I told him that I was roped into the business in just that way."

"Was that true?"