第71章 AGGIE AT BAY(1)

Burke, after the lawyer had left him, watched the door expectantly for the coming of the girl, whom he had ordered brought before him.But, when at last Dan appeared, and stood aside to permit her passing into the office, the Inspector gasped at the unexpectedness of the vision.He had anticipated the coming of a woman of that world with which he was most familiar in the exercise of his professional duties--the underworld of criminals, some one beautiful perhaps, but with the brand of viciousness marked subtly, yet visibly for the trained eye to see.Then, even in that first moment, he told himself that he should have been prepared for the unusual in this instance, since the girl had to do with Mary Turner, and that disturbing person herself showed in face and form and manner nothing to suggest aught but a gentlewoman.And, in the next instant, the Inspector forgot his surprise in a sincere, almost ardent admiration.

The girl was rather short, but of a slender elegance of form that was ravishing.She was gowned, too, with a chic nicety to arouse the envy of all less-fortunate women.Her costume had about it an indubitable air, a finality of perfection in its kind.On another, it might have appeared perhaps the merest trifle garish.

But that fault, if in fact it ever existed, was made into a virtue by the correcting innocence of the girl's face.It was a childish face, childish in the exquisite smoothness of the soft, pink skin, childish in the wondering stare of the blue eyes, now so widely opened in dismay, childish in the wistful drooping of the rosebud mouth.

The girl advanced slowly, with a laggard hesitation in her movements obviously from fear.She approached the desk, from behind which the Inspector watched, fascinated by the fresh and wholesome beauty of this young creature.He failed to observe the underlying anger beneath the girl's outward display of alarm.

He shook off his first impression by means of a resort to his customary bluster in such cases.

"Now, then, my girl," he said roughly, "I want to know----"There came a change, wrought in the twinkling of an eye.The tiny, trimly shod foot of the girl rose and fell in a wrathful stamp.

"How dare you!" The clear blue eyes were become darkened with anger.There was a deepened leaf of red in either cheek.The drooping lips drooped no longer, but were bent to a haughtiness that was finely impressive.

Before the offended indignation of the young woman, Burke sat bewildered by embarrassment for once in his life, and quite at a loss.

"What's that?" he said, dubiously.

The girl explained the matter explicitly enough.

"What do you mean by this outrage?" she stormed.Her voice was low and rich, with a charming roundness that seemed the very hallmark of gentility.But, now, it was surcharged with an indignant amazement over the indignity put upon her by the representatives of the law.Then, abruptly, the blue eyes were softened in their fires, as by the sudden nearness of tears.

"What do you mean?" the girl repeated.Her slim form was tense with wrath."I demand my instant release." There was indescribable rebuke in her slow emphasis of the words.

Burke was impressed in spite of himself, in spite of his accustomed cold indifference to the feelings of others as necessity compelled him to make investigation of them.His harsh, blustering voice softened perceptibly, and he spoke in a wheedling tone, such as one might employ in the effort to tranquillize a spoiled child in a fit of temper.

"Wait a minute," he remonstrated."Wait a minute!" He made a pacifically courteous gesture toward one of the chairs, which stood by an end of the desk."Sit down," he invited, with an effort toward cajoling.

The scorn of the girl was superb.Her voice came icily, as she answered:

"I shall do nothing of the sort.Sit down, indeed!--here! Why, Ihave been arrested----" There came a break in the music of her tones throbbing resentment.A little sob crept in, and broke the sequence of words.The dainty face was vivid with shame."I--"she faltered, "I've been arrested--by a common policeman!"The Inspector seized on the one flaw left him for defense against her indictment.

"No, no, miss," he argued, earnestly."Excuse me.It wasn't any common policeman--it was a detective sergeant."But his effort to placate was quite in vain.The ingenuous little beauty with the child's face and the blue eyes so widely opened fairly panted in her revolt against the ignominy of her position, and was not to be so easily appeased.Her voice came vibrant with disdain.Her level gaze on the Inspector was of a sort to suggest to him anxieties over possible complications here.

"You wait!" she cried violently."You just wait, I tell you, until my papa hears of this!"Burke regarded the furious girl doubtfully.

"Who is your papa?" he asked, with a bit of alarm stirring in his breast, for he had no mind to offend any one of importance where there was no need.

"I sha'n't tell you," came the petulant retort from the girl.

Her ivory forehead was wrinkled charmingly in a little frown of obstinacy."Why," she went on, displaying new symptoms of distress over another appalling idea that flashed on her in this moment, "you would probably give my name to the reporters." Once again the rosebud mouth drooped into curves of sorrow, of a great self-pity."If it ever got into the newspapers, my family would die of shame!"The pathos of her fear pierced through the hardened crust of the police official.He spoke apologetically.

"Now, the easiest way out for both of us," he suggested, "is for you to tell me just who you are.You see, young lady, you were found in the house of a notorious crook."The haughtiness of the girl waxed.It seemed as if she grew an inch taller in her scorn of the Inspector's saying.

"How perfectly absurd!" she exclaimed, scathingly."I was calling on Miss Mary Turner!""How did you come to meet her, anyhow?" Burke inquired.He still held his big voice to a softer modulation than that to which it was habituated.