"He gently removed a leathern wallet," she said sedately, "containing a large sum of money from the coat pocket of a member of the detective force." The elegance of utterance was inimitably done. But in the next instant, the ordinary vulgarity of enunciation was in full play again.

"Oh, Gee!" she cried gaily. "He says Inspector Burke's got a gold watch that weighs a ton, an' all set with diamon's!--which was give to 'im by--admirin' friends!... We didn't contribute."

"Given to him," Mary corrected, with a tolerant smile.

Aggie sniffed once again.

"What difference does it make?" she demanded, scornfully. "He's got it, ain't he?" And then she added with avaricious intensity: "Just as soon as I get time, I'm goin' after that watch--believe me!"

Mary shook her head in denial.

"No, you are not," she said, calmly. "You are under my orders now. And as long as you are working with us, you will break no laws."

"But I can't see----" Aggie began to argue with the petulance of a spoiled child.

Mary's voice came with a certainty of conviction born of fact.

"When you were working alone," she said gravely, did you have a home like this?"

"No," was the answer, spoken a little rebelliously.

"Or such clothes? Most of all, did you have safety from the police?"

"No," Aggie admitted, somewhat more responsively. "But, just the same, I can't see----"

Mary began putting on her gloves, and at the same time strove to give this remarkable young woman some insight into her own point of view, though she knew the task to be one well-nigh impossible.

"Agnes," she said, didactically, "the richest men in this country have made their fortunes, not because of the law, but in spite of the law.

They made up their minds what they wanted to do, and then they engaged lawyers clever enough to show them how they could do it, and still keep within the law. Any one with brains can get rich in this country if he will engage the right lawyer. Well, I have the brains--and Harris is showing me the law--the wonderful twisted law that was made for the rich! Since we keep inside the law, we are safe."

Aggie, without much apprehension of the exact situation, was moved to a dimpled mirth over the essential humor of the method indicated.

"Gee, that's funny," she cried happily. "You an' me an' Joe Garson handin' it to 'em, an' the bulls can't touch us! Next thing you know, Harris will be havin' us incorporated as the American Legal Crime Society."

"I shouldn't be in the least surprised," Mary a.s.sented, as she finished b.u.t.toning her gloves. She smiled, but there was a hint of grimness in the bending of her lips. That grimness remained, as she glanced at the clock, then went toward the door of the room, speaking over her shoulder.

"And, now I must be off to a most important engagement with Mr. d.i.c.k Gilder."

CHAPTER VIII. A TIP FROM HEADQUARTERS.

Presently, when she had finished the cigarette, Aggie proceeded to her own chamber and there spent a considerable time in making a toilette calculated to set off to its full advantage the slender daintiness of her form. When at last she was gowned to her satisfaction, she went into the drawing-room of the apartment and gave herself over to more cigarettes, in an easy chair, sprawled out in an att.i.tude of comfort never taught in any finishing school for young ladies. She at the same time indulged her tastes in art and literature by reading the jokes and studying the comic pictures in an evening paper, which the maid brought in at her request. She had about exhausted this form of amus.e.m.e.nt when the coming of Joe Garson, who was usually in and out of the apartment a number of times daily, provided a welcome diversion. After a casual greeting between the two, Aggie explained, in response to his question, that Mary had gone out to keep an engagement with d.i.c.k Gilder.

There was a little period of silence while the man, with the resolute face and the light gray eyes that shone so clearly underneath the thick, waving silver hair, held his head bent downward as if in intent thought.

When, finally, he spoke, there was a certain quality in his voice that caused Aggie to regard him curiously.

"Mary has been with him a good deal lately," he said, half questioningly.

"That's what," was the curt agreement.

Garson brought out his next query with the brutal bluntness of his kind; and yet there was a vague suggestion of tenderness in his tones under the vulgar words.

"Think she's stuck on him?" He had seated himself on a settee opposite the girl, who did not trouble on his account to a.s.sume a posture more decorous, and he surveyed her keenly as he waited for a reply.

"Why not?" Aggie retorted. "Bet your life I'd be, if I had a chance.

He's a swell boy. And his father's got the coin, too."

At this the man moved impatiently, and his eyes wandered to the window.

Again, Aggie studied him with a swift glance of interrogation. Not being the possessor of an over-nice sensibility as to the feelings of others, she now spoke briskly.

"Joe, if there's anything on your mind, shoot it."

Garson hesitated for a moment, then decided to unburden himself, for he craved precise knowledge in this matter.

"It's Mary," he explained, with some embarra.s.sment; "her and young Gilder."

"Well?" came the crisp question.

"Well, somehow," Garson went on, still somewhat confusedly, "I can't see any good of it, for her."

"Why?" Aggie demanded, in surprise.

Garson's manner grew easier, now that the subject was well broached.

"Old man Gilder's got a big pull," he vouchsafed, "and if he caught on to his boy's going with Mary, he'd be likely to send the police after us--strong! Believe me, I ain't looking for any trip up the river."

Aggie shook her head, quite unaffected by the man's suggestion of possible peril in the situation.

"We ain't done nothin' they can touch us for," she declared, with a.s.surance. "Mary says so."

Garson, however, was unconvinced, notwithstanding his deference to the judgment of his leader.

"Whether we've done anything, or whether we haven't, don't matter," he objected. "Once the police set out after you, they'll get you. Russia ain't in it with some of the things I have seen pulled off in this town."

"Oh, can that 'fraid talk!" Aggie exclaimed, roughly. "I tell you they can't get us. We've got our fingers crossed."

She would have said more, but a noise at the hall door interrupted her, and she looked up to see a man in the opening, while behind him appeared the maid, protesting angrily.

"Never mind that announcing thing with me," the newcomer rasped to the expostulating servant, in a voice that suited well his thick-set figure, with the bullet-shaped head and the bull-like neck. Then he turned to the two in the drawing-room, both of whom had now risen to their feet.

"It's all right, Fannie," Aggie said hastily to the fl.u.s.tered maid. "You can go."

As the servant, after an indignant toss of the head, departed along the pa.s.sage, the visitor clumped heavily forward and stopped in the center of the room, looking first at one and then the other of the two with a smile that was not pleasant. He was not at pains to remove the derby hat which he wore rather far back on his head. By this single sign, one might have recognized Ca.s.sidy, who had had Mary Turner in his charge on the occasion of her ill-fated visit to Edward Gilder's office, four years before, though now the man had thickened somewhat, and his ruddy face was grown even coa.r.s.er.

"h.e.l.lo, Joe!" he cried, familiarly. "h.e.l.lo, Aggie!"

The light-gray eyes of the forger had narrowed perceptibly as he recognized the ident.i.ty of the unceremonious caller, while the lines of his firmly set mouth took on an added fixity.