"Sure, I understand," Garson replied, with an amiability equal to the Inspector's own.

Burke's manner continued very amicable as he went on speaking.

"You see, Joe, anyhow, we've got the right party safe enough. You can bet on that!"

Garson resisted the lure.

"If you don't want me----" he began suggestively; and he turned toward the door to the outer hall. "Why, if you don't want me, I'll--get along."

"Oh, what's the hurry, Joe?" Burke retorted, with the effect of stopping the other short. He pressed the buzzer as the agreed signal to Ca.s.sidy.

"Where did you say Mary Turner was last night?"

At the question, all Garson's fears for the woman rushed back on him with appalling force. Of what avail his safety, if she were still in peril?

"I don't know where she was," he exclaimed, doubtfully. He realized his blunder even as the words left his lips, and sought to correct it as best he might. "Why, yes, I do, too," he went on, as if a.s.sailed by sudden memory. "I dropped into her place kind of late, and they said she'd gone to bed--headache, I guess.... Yes, she was home, of course.

She didn't go out of the house, all night." His insistence on the point was of itself suspicious, but eagerness to protect her stultified his wits.

Burke sat grim and silent, offering no comment on the lie.

"Know anything about young Gilder?" he demanded. "Happen to know where he is now?" He arose and came around the desk, so that he stood close to Garson, at whom he glowered.

"Not a thing!" was the earnest answer. But the speaker's fear rose swiftly, for the linking of these names was significant--frightfully significant!

The inner door opened, and Mary Turner entered the office. Garson with difficulty suppressed the cry of distress that rose to his lips. For a few moments, the silence was unbroken. Then, presently, Burke, by a gesture, directed the girl to advance toward the center of the room.

As she obeyed, he himself went a little toward the door, and, when it opened again, and d.i.c.k Gilder appeared, he interposed to check the young man's rush forward as his gaze fell on his bride, who stood regarding him with sad eyes.

Garson stared mutely at the burly man in uniform who held their destinies in the hollow of a hand. His lips parted as if he were about to speak. Then, he bade defiance to the impulse. He deemed it safer for all that he should say nothing--now!... And it is very easy to say a word too many. And that one may be a word never to be unsaid--or gainsaid.

Then, while still that curious, dynamic silence endured, Ca.s.sidy came briskly into the office. By some magic of duty, he had contrived to give his usually hebetudinous features an expression of enthusiasm.

"Say, Chief," the detective said rapidly, "they've squealed!"

Burke regarded his aide with an air intolerably triumphant. His voice came smug:

"Squealed, eh?" His glance ran over Garson for a second, then made its inquisition of Mary and of d.i.c.k Gilder. He did not give a look to Ca.s.sidy as he put his question. "Do they tell the same story?" And then, when the detective had answered in the affirmative, he went on speaking in tones ponderous with self-complacency; and, now, his eyes held sharply, craftily, on the woman.

"I was right then, after all--right, all the time! Good enough!" Of a sudden, his voice boomed somberly. "Mary Turner, I want you for the murder of----"

Garson's rush halted the sentence. He had leaped forward. His face was rigid. He broke on the Inspector's words with a gesture of fury. His voice came in a hiss:

"That's a d.a.m.ned lie!... I did it!"

CHAPTER XXIV. ANGUISH AND BLISS.

Joe Garson had shouted his confession without a second of reflection.

But the result must have been the same had he taken years of thought.

Between him and her as the victim of the law, there could be no hesitation for choice. Indeed, just now, he had no heed to his own fate.

The prime necessity was to save her, Mary, from the toils of the law that were closing around her. For himself, in the days to come, there would be a ghastly dread, but there would never be regret over the cost of saving her. Perhaps, some other he might have let suffer in his stead--not her! Even, had he been innocent, and she guilty of the crime, he would still have taken the burden of it on his own shoulders. He had saved her from the waters--he would save her until the end, as far as the power in him might lie. It was thus that, with the primitive directness of his reverential love for the girl, he counted no sacrifice too great in her behalf. Joe Garson was not a good man, at the world esteems goodness. On the contrary, he was distinctly an evil one, a menace to the society on which he preyed constantly. But his good qualities, if few, were of the strongest fiber, rooted in the deeps of him. He loathed treachery. His one guiltiness in this respect had been, curiously enough, toward Mary herself, in the scheme of the burglary, which she had forbidden. But, in the last a.n.a.lysis, here his deceit had been designed to bring affluence to her. It was his abhorrence of treachery among pals that had driven him to the murder of the stool-pigeon in a fit of ungovernable pa.s.sion. He might have stayed his hand then, but for the gusty rage that swept him on to the crime. None the less, had he spared the man, his hatred of the betrayer would have been the same.... And the other virtue of Joe Garson was the complement of this--his own loyalty, a loyalty that made him forget self utterly where he loved. The one woman who had ever filled his heart was Mary, and for her his life were not too much to give.

The suddenness of it all held Mary voiceless for long seconds. She was frozen with horror of the event.

When, at last, words came, they were a frantic prayer of protest.

"No, Joe! No! Don't talk--don't talk!"

Burke, immensely gratified, went nimbly to his chair, and thence surveyed the agitated group with grisly pleasure.

"Joe has talked," he said, significantly.

Mary, shaken as she was by the fact of Garson's confession, nevertheless retained her presence of mind sufficiently to resist with all her strength.

"He did it to protect me," she stated, earnestly.

The Inspector disdained such futile argument. As the doorman appeared in answer to the buzzer, he directed that the stenographer be summoned at once.

"We'll have the confession in due form," he remarked, gazing pleasedly on the three before him.

"He's not going to confess," Mary insisted, with spirit.

But Burke was not in the least impressed. He disregarded her completely, and spoke mechanically to Garson the formal warning required by the law.

"You are hereby cautioned that anything you say may be used against you." Then, as the stenographer entered, he went on with lively interest. "Now, Joe!"

Yet once again, Mary protested, a little wildly.

"Don't speak, Joe! Don't say a word till we can get a lawyer for you!"

The man met her pleading eyes steadily, and shook his head in refusal.

"It's no use, my girl," Burke broke in, harshly. "I told you I'd get you. I'm going to try you and Garson, and the whole gang for murder--yes, every one of you.... And you, Gilder," he continued, lowering on the young man who had defied him so obstinately, "you'll go to the House of Detention as a material witness." He turned his gaze to Garson again, and spoke authoritatively: "Come on now, Joe!"

Garson went a step toward the desk, and spoke decisively.

"If I come through, you'll let her go--and him?" he added as an afterthought, with a nod toward d.i.c.k Gilder.

"Oh, Joe, don't!" Mary cried, bitterly. "We'll spend every dollar we can raise to save you!"

"Now, it's no use," the Inspector complained. "You're only wasting time.

He's said that he did it. That's all there is to it. Now that we're sure he's our man, he hasn't got a chance in the world."

"Well, how about it?" Garson demanded, savagely. "Do they go clear, if I come through?"

"We'll get the best lawyers in the country," Mary persisted, desperately. "We'll save you, Joe--we'll save you!"

Garson regarded the distraught girl with wistful eyes. But there was no trace of yielding in his voice as he replied, though he spoke very sorrowfully.