Lonesome Town Part 24

"Not in them clothes, you didn't. Why don't you hire out to the Sewer Department, if excavating's your line? Sorry, but you and mother is in Dutch with us."

There came a growl from Pudge. "Not Dutch-German, and with more than us.

Report of your doin's was 'phoned the station. They sent me out to round you up. I happened on me handsome friend here off-duty and brought him along for good measure. I was minded to leave you go that other time, you cheerful lunatic. But now I'm a-going to take you in. Watch 'em, 'Donis, whilst I go ring for the wagon."

At this mention of the auto-patrol vehicle, behind the gratings of which the lawless and unfortunate are exhibited, like caged wildlings, through the city streets, Jane stepped toward Pape. He felt her hand steal into the crook of his elbow, as if for protection from such a disgrace.

Although personally he had no objection to wagoning across the park to the a.r.s.enal, he vibrated to her mute appeal.

"As a favor, Moore, would you mind walking us to your calaboose?" he asked. "I give you my cross-my-heart-and-hope that we'll not try to get away. Don't refuse on mother's account. She's mighty spry on her feet."

Pudge O'Shay continued to grumble. Being a sparrow cop was no job for a flat-foot, especially a fat one, he declared. He was tired and sorry for himself out loud. After a small controversy, however, he withdrew his objection to the stroll, if not taken at speed.

The procession started along No. 1 Traverse, the shortest route to the a.r.s.enal. The arresting officer led. The prime culprit, his young-old accomplice clinging to his arm, followed. The dismounted officer brought up as rear guard.

"Got a permit for your automatic?" Pape was able to ask Jane in a murmur well below the scrunch of feet.

"No. But I've got the automatic with me."

"Slip it to me!"

He did not explain the request. Whether he meant to force a gun-point escape and needed her pistol to supplement his own against their two captors or whether he feared some such desperate initiative on her part, he left her to wonder. Watching their chance, he whispered "Now!" Next second he had safe inside his own coat pocket that very small, very black and very competent looking something with which she had commanded him in vain earlier in the day.

"Just try to trust me, Jane," was his response to the unquestioning obedience which had produced it from the blouse beneath her old-lady black.

"To try to trust you is getting easier, Peter."

The guarded admission sounded sweeter than the rhododendrons smelled. He felt happier going to jail with Jane than ever in his life before; was luxuriating in sentimentality when a roar like that of flaunted Fate lacerated the air. Pape started and stared about; saw that they were nearing Fifth Avenue and the menagerie that flanks the a.r.s.enal; a.s.sumed that some monarch of the wild caged there had but vented his heart. A calming hand he placed over the girl's two which had gripped his arm.

"Just a moth-eaten old lion dreaming of his native jungle and talking in his sleep."

"But you don't understand what it might mean, that Nubian roar. It may be another clew to point the location of-of what grandfather buried in the park, you know."

Through the gloom he stared down into the gloomier scoop of her bonnet.

"Say," he enquired, mildly as he could, "you ain't going to ask me next to play Daniel and to dig in that lion's den?"

"Hush. Don't make fun. This is very important. If we can find four poplars over on this side of the park, within earshot of the menagerie lions-The first crypt verse starts off like this:

"'List to the Nubian roar And whisper of poplars four.'"

"I wish I could remember more accurately! It rhymes about bed-rock and crock, height and might and fight, then trails off into figures. But I am certain about those first two lines. Maybe we're getting close. With that Nubian roar as a center, let's walk round and round, in widening circles, until we list to the whisper of poplars four."

Pape's perplexity had not been eased by his steady stare into the poke.

"Very nice," he said, "that stroll round and round, provided we don't go too fast and get dizzy. But we can't start at the present moment."

"Why not?"-she, this time impatiently.

"You forget, my dear young lady, that we are arrested."

That was true. They were-and before the door of their jail.

CHAPTER XVIII-TOO READY RESCUE

Before the desk sergeant of a metropolitan police station friends.h.i.+p usually ceases. It did tonight in the a.r.s.enal, otherwise the 33rd Precinct. By not so much as the ghost of a grin could the be-mustached official in a uniform striped by decades of service have detected even a speaking acquaintance between captors and prisoners.

The "case" was Pudge O'Shay's and he made the arraignment, Moore having subsided into a wooden arm-chair tilted against the wall.

"These are the grub worms that the 'phone message was about," announced the sparrow cop.

"Mind telling me who sent in that get-your-gun alarm?" Pape asked with a navete that masked the effrontery of his request.

The sergeant stared at him in amazement. "None of your business, you human mole."

"Then I'll tell you," was his easy-manner counter. "A sharp-faced little crook named Swinton Welch."

"Easy there with the hard names, young fellow! Swin Welch is a friend of mine and no person's going to call him a crook to my face, much less a prisoner."

"Thought so," said Pape with a grin. "If he ain't a crook, how about the folks he's working for?"

Ignoring him, the sergeant opened the blotter.

"Name?"

"Peter Stansbury--"

"Never heard about a little rule of ladies first, I reckon," interrupted the officer. "If the s.h.i.+p was sinking you'd make the first boat, I bet.

Answer up, mother."

For the first time the poke-bonneted head of the less aggressive prisoner lifted sufficiently to show the face within.

"Well, I'll be--"

He was-struck dumb, if that was what he had been about to say. Next minute, however, he must have remembered that sergeants are supposed to be superior to shock. At any rate, he began the routine questions.

The red, soft-curved lips of youth answered readily from the shadow of the antiquated headgear. Even "How old are you?" had no terrors for one who had voted at the last election. Her "more than twenty-one" suggested the folly of pressing the point.

"Are you armed?" asked the officer in charge when the skeleton biography was completed.

Jane's startled glance at Pape told him at least that now she understood the commandeering of her automatic-that some penalty was imposed for the bearing of weapons without permit. With a word and wag of chin she replied in the negative.

"Not having a matron here to search you, I'll have to take your say-so."

The sergeant, after a meditative tug at his gray mustache, waved her back.

Pape was pedigreed with scant ceremony and his answers recorded as he gave them, even to "Hotel Astor, residence."