But he was too late. By now, Mary had herself well in hand again, vastly ashamed of the short period of self-betrayal caused by the official's artifice against her heart. As she listened to the Inspector's a.s.surances, the mocking expression of her face was not encouraging to that astute individual, but he persevered manfully.

"Just you wait," he went on cheerfully, "and I'll prove to you that I'm on the level about this, that I'm really your friend.... There was a letter came for you to your apartment. My men brought it down to me.

I've read it. Here it is. I'll read it to you!"

He picked up an envelope, which had been lying on the desk, and drew out the single sheet of paper it contained. Mary watched him, wondering much more than her expression revealed over this new development. Then, as she listened, quick interest touched her features to a new life. In her eyes leaped emotions to make or mar a life.

This was the letter:

"I can't go without telling you how sorry I am. There won't never be a time that I won't remember it was me got you sent up, that you did time in my place. I ain't going to forgive myself ever, and I swear I'm going straight always.

"Your true friend,

"HELEN MORRIS."

For once, Burke showed a certain delicacy. When he had finished the reading, he said nothing for a long minute--only, sat with his cunning eyes on the face of the woman who was immobile there before him. And, as he looked on her in her slender elegance of form and gentlewomanly loveliness of face, a loveliness intelligent and refined beyond that of most women, he felt borne in on his consciousness the fact that here was one to be respected. He fought against the impression. It was to him preposterous, for she was one of that underworld against which he was ruthlessly at war. Yet, he could not altogether overcome his instinct toward a half-reverent admiration.... And, as the letter proved, she had been innocent at the outset. She had been the victim of a mistaken justice, made outcast by the law she had never wronged.... His mood of respect was inevitable, since he had some sensibilities, though they were coa.r.s.ened, and they sensed vaguely the maelstrom of emotions that now swirled in the girl's breast.

To Mary Turner, this was the wonderful hour. In it, the vindication of her innocence was made complete. The story was there recorded in black and white on the page written by Helen Morris. It mattered little--or infinitely much!--that it came too late. She had gained her evil place in the world, was a notorious woman in fact, was even now a prisoner under suspicion of murder. Nevertheless, she felt a thrill of ecstasy over this written doc.u.ment--which it had never occurred to her to wrest from the girl at the time of the oral confession. Now that it had been proffered, the value of it loomed above almost all things else in the world. It proclaimed undeniably the wrong under which she had suffered.

She was not the thief the court had adjudged her. "Now, there's n.o.body here but just you and me. Come on, now--put me wise!"

Mary was again the resourceful woman who was glad to pit her brain against the contriving of those who fought her. So, at this moment, she seemed pliant to the will of the man who urged her thus cunningly. Her quick glance around the office was of a sort to delude the Inspector into a belief that she was yielding to his lure.

"Are you sure no one will ever know?" she asked, timorously.

"n.o.body but you and me," Burke declared, all agog with antic.i.p.ation of victory at last. "I give you my word!"

Mary met the gaze of the Inspector fully. In the same instant, she flashed on him a smile that was dazzling, the smile of a woman triumphant in her mastery of the situation. Her face was radiant, luminous with honest mirth. There was something simple and genuine in her beauty that thrilled the man before her, the man trying so vindictively to trap her to her own undoing. For all his grossness, Burke was of shrewd perceptions, and somewhere, half-submerged under the sordid nature of his calling, was a love of things esthetic, a responsiveness to the appeals of beauty. Now, as his glance searched the face of the girl who was bubbling with mirth, he experienced an odd warming of his heart under the spell of her loveliness--a loveliness wholly feminine, pervasive, wholesome. But, too, his soul shook in a premonition of catastrophe, for there was mischief in the beaming eyes of softest violet. There was a demon of mockery playing in the curves of the scarlet lips, as she smiled so winsomely.

All his apprehensions were verified by her utterance. It came in a most casual voice, despite the dancing delight in her face. The tones were drawled in the matter-of-fact fashion of statement that leads a listener to answer without heed to the exact import of the question, unless very alert, indeed.... This is what she said in that so-casual voice:

"I'm not speaking loud enough, am I, stenographer?"

And that industrious writer of shorthand notes, absorbed in his task, answered instantly from his hidden place in the corridor.

"No, ma'am, not quite."

Mary laughed aloud, while Burke sat dumfounded. She rose swiftly, and went to the nearest window, and with a pull at the cord sent the shade flying upward. For seconds, there was revealed the busy stenographer, bent over his pad. Then, the noise of the ascending shade, which had been hammering on his consciousness, penetrated, and he looked up.

Realization came, as he beheld the woman laughing at him through the window. Consternation beset him. He knew that, somehow, he had bungled fatally. A groan of distress burst from him, and he fled the place in ignominious rout.

There was another whose spirit was equally desirous of flight--Burke!

Yet once again, he was beaten at his own game, his cunning made of no avail against the clever interpretation of this woman whom he a.s.sailed.

He had no defense to offer. He did not care to meet her gaze just then, since he was learning to respect her as one wronged, where he had regarded her hitherto merely as of the flotsam and jetsam of the criminal cla.s.s. So, he avoided her eyes as she stood by the window regarding him quizzically. In a panic of confusion quite new to him in his years of experience, he pressed the b.u.t.ton on his desk.

The doorman appeared with that automatic precision which made him valuable in his position, and the Inspector hailed the ready presence with a feeling of profound relief.

"Dan, take her back!" he said, feebly.

Mary was smiling still as she went to the door. But she could not resist the impulse toward retort.

"Oh, yes," she said, suavely; "you were right on the level with me, weren't you, Burke? n.o.body here but you and me!" The words came in a sing-song of mockery.

The Inspector had nothing in the way of answer--only, sat motionless until the door closed after her. Then, left alone, his sole audible comment was a single word--one he had learned, perhaps, from Aggie Lynch:

"h.e.l.l!"

CHAPTER XXIII. THE CONFESSION.

Burke was a persistent man, and he had set himself to getting the murderer of Griggs. Foiled in his efforts thus far by the opposition of Mary, he now gave himself over to careful thought as to a means of procedure that might offer the best possibilities of success. His beetling brows were drawn in a frown of perplexity for a full quarter of an hour, while he rested motionless in his chair, an unlighted cigar between his lips. Then, at last, his face cleared; a grin of satisfaction twisted his heavy mouth, and he smote the desk joyously.

"It's a cinch it'll get 'im!" he rumbled, in glee.

He pressed the b.u.t.ton-call, and ordered the doorman to send in Ca.s.sidy.

When the detective appeared a minute later, he went directly to his subject with a straightforward energy usual to him in his work.

"Does Garson know we've arrested the Turner girl and young Gilder?" And, when he had been answered in the negative: "Or that we've got Chicago Red and Dacey here?"

"No," Ca.s.sidy replied. "He hasn't been spoken to since we made the collar.... He seems worried," the detective volunteered.

Burke's broad jowls shook from the force with which he snapped his jaws together.

"He'll be more worried before I get through with him!" he growled.

He regarded Ca.s.sidy speculatively. "Do you remember the Third Degree Inspector Burns worked on McGloin? Well," he went on, as the detective nodded a.s.sent, "that's what I'm going to do to Garson. He's got imagination, that crook! The things he don't know about are the things he's afraid of. After he gets in here, I want you to take his pals one after the other, and lock them up in the cells there in the corridor.

The shades on the corridor windows here will be up, and Garson will see them taken in. The fact of their being there will set his imagination to working overtime, all right."

Burke reflected for a moment, and then issued the final directions for the execution of his latest plot.

"When you get the buzzer from me, you have young Gilder and the Turner woman sent in. Then, after a while, you'll get another buzzer. When you hear that, come right in here, and tell me that the gang has squealed.

I'll do the rest. Bring Garson here in just five minutes.... Tell Dan to come in."

As the detective went out, the doorman promptly entered, and thereat Burke proceeded with the further instructions necessary to the carrying out of his scheme.

"Take the chairs out of the office, Dan," he directed, "except mine and one other--that one!" He indicated a chair standing a little way from one end of his desk. "Now, have all the shades up." He chuckled as he added: "That Turner woman saved you the trouble with one."

As the doorman went out after having fulfilled these commands, the Inspector lighted the cigar which he had retained still in his mouth, and then seated himself in the chair that was set partly facing the windows opening on the corridor. He smiled with antic.i.p.atory triumph as he made sure that the whole length of the corridor with the barred doors of the cells was plainly visible to one sitting thus. With a final glance about to make certain that all was in readiness, he returned to his chair, and, when the door opened, he was, to all appearances, busily engaged in writing.

"Here's Garson, Chief," Ca.s.sidy announced.

"h.e.l.lo, Joe!" Burke exclaimed, with a seeming of careless friendliness, as the detective went out, and Garson stood motionless just within the door.

"Sit down, a minute, won't you?" the Inspector continued, affably. He did not look up from his writing as he spoke.

Garson's usually strong face was showing weak with fear. His chin, which was commonly very firm, moved a little from uneasy twitchings of his lips. His clear eyes were slightly clouded to a look of apprehension, as they roved the room furtively. He made no answer to the Inspector's greeting for a few moments, but remained standing without movement, poised alertly as if sensing some concealed peril. Finally, however, his anxiety found expression in words. His tone was pregnant with alarm, though he strove to make it merely complaining.

"Say, what am I arrested for?" he protested. "I ain't done anything."

Even now, Burke did not look up, and his pen continued to hurry over the paper.

"Who told you you were arrested?" he remarked, cheerfully, in his blandest voice.