XII.
When Obermuller sent for me I thought he wanted to see me about that play he's writing in which I'm to star—when the pigs begin to fly.
Funniest thing in the world about that man, Mag. He knows he can't get bookings for any play on earth; that if he did they'd be canceled and any old excuse thrown at him, as soon as Tausig heard of it and could put on the screws. He knows that there isn't an unwatched hole in theatrical America through which he can crawl and pull me and the play in after him. And yet he just can't let go working on it. He loves it, Mag; he loves it as Molly loved that child of hers that kept her nursing it all the years of its life, and left her feeling that the world had been robbed of everything there was for a woman to do when it died.
Obermuller has told me all the plot. In fact, he's worked it out on me. I know it as it is, as he wanted it to be, and as it's going to be. He tells me he's built it up about me; that it will fit me as never a comedy fitted a player yet, and that we'll make such a hit—the play and I together—that...
And then he remembers that there's no chance; not the ghost of one; and he falls to swearing at the Trust.
"Don't you think, Mr. O.," I said, as he began again when I came into his office, "that it might be as well to quit cursing the Syndicate till you've got something new to say or something different to rail about? It seems to me a man's likely to get daffy if he keeps harping on—"
"Oh, I've got it all right, Nance, be sure of that! I've got something different to say of them and something new to swear about. They've done me up; that's all. Just as they've fixed Iringer and Gaffney and Howison."
"Tell me."
He threw out his arms and then let them fall to his side.
"Oh, it's easy," he cried, "so easy that I never thought of it. They've just bought the Vaudeville out of hand and served notice on me that when my lease expires next month they'll not be able to renew it, 'unfortunately'! That's all. No; not quite. In order to kill all hope of a new plan in me they've just let it get to be understood that any man or woman that works for Obermuller needn't come round to them at any future time."
"Phew! A blacklist."
"Not anything so tangible. It's just a hint, you know, but it works all right. It works like—"
"What are you going to do; what can you do?"
"Shoot Tausig or myself, or both of us."
"Nonsense!"
"Yes, of course, it's nonsense, or rather it's only what I'd like to do.... But that's not the question. Never mind about me. It's what are you going to do?"
He looked straight at me, waiting. But I didn't answer. I was thinking.
"You don't realize, Nance, what those fellows are capable of. When Gaffney told me, before he gave up and went West, that there was a genuine signed conspiracy among them to crush out us independents, I laughed at him. 'It's a dream, Gaffney,' I said. 'Forget it.' 'It's no dream, as you'll find out when your turn comes in time,' he shouted. 'It's a fact, and what's more, Iringer once taxed Tausig to his face with it; told him he knew there was such a document in existence, signed by the great Tausig himself, by Heffelfinger of the Pacific circuit; by Dixon of Chicago, and Weinstock of New Orleans, binding themselves to force us fellows to the wall, and specifying the per cent. of profit each one of 'em should get on any increase of business; to blacklist every man and woman that worked for us; to buy up our debts and even bring false attachments, when—'"
"Now, weren't there enough real debts to satisfy 'em? They're hard to please, if you haven't creditors enough to suit 'em!"
He looked grim, but he didn't speak.
"I don't believe it, anyway, Mr. O; and 'tisn't good for you to keep thinking about just one thing. You'll land where Iringer did, if you don't look out. How did he know about it, anyway?"
"There was a leak in Tausig's office. Iringer used to be in with them, and he had it from a clerk who—but never mind that. It's the blacklisting I'm talking about now. Gray's just been in to see me, to let me know that she quits at the end of the season. And his Lordship, too, of course. You're not burdened with a contract, Nance. Perhaps you'd better think it over seriously for a day or two and decide if it wouldn't be best—"
"I don't have to," I interrupted then.
"Nance!" he cried, jumping up, as though he'd been relieved of half his troubles.
"I don't have to think it over," I went on slowly, not looking at the hand he held out to me. "It doesn't take long to know that when you're between the devil and the deep sea, you'd better try—the devil rather than be forced out into the wet."
"What?—you don't mean—"
I knew he was looking at me incredulously, but I just wouldn't meet his eye.
"My staying with you will do you no good—" was hurrying now to get it over with—"and it would do me a lot of harm. I think you're right, Mr. Obermuller; I'd better just go over to where it's warm. They'll be glad to get me and—and, to tell the truth, I'll be glad to get in with the Syndicate, even if I can't make as good terms as I might have by selling that contract, which—like the famous conspiracy you're half mad about—never existed."
He sat down on the edge of the desk. I caught one glimpse of his face. It was black; that was enough for me. I turned to go.
"Ah, but it did, Miss Olden, it did!" he sneered.
"I won't believe it on the word of a man that's been in the lunatic asylum ever since he lost his theater."
"Perhaps you'll believe it on mine."
I jumped. "On yours!"
"Didn't that little bully, when he lost his temper that day at the Van Twiller, when we had our last fight—didn't he pull a paper out of his box and shake it in my face, and—"
"But—you could have them arrested for conspiracy and—"
"And the proof of it could be destroyed and then—but I can't see how this interests you."
"No—no," I said thoughtfully. "I only happened to lump it in with the contract we haven't—you and I. And as there's no contract, why there's no need of my waiting till the end of the season."
"Do you mean to say you'd—you'd—"
"If 'twere done, 'twere better it'd be done—quickly," I said Macbethically.
He looked at me. Sitting there on his desk, his clenched fist on his knee, he looked for a moment as though he was about to fly at me. Then all of a sudden he slipped into his chair, leaned back and laughed.
It wasn't a pleasant laugh, Mag. No—wait. Let me tell you the rest.
"You are so shrewd, Olden, so awfully shrewd! Your eye is so everlastingly out for the main chance, and you're still so young that I predict a—a great future for you. I might even suggest that by cultivating Tausig personally—"
"You needn't."
"No, you're right; I needn't. You can discount any suggestion I might make. You just want to be the first to go over, eh? To get there before Gray does—to get all there is in it for the first rebel that lays down his arms; not to come in late when submission is stale—and cheap. Don't worry about terms, you poor little babe in the woods. Don't—" His own words seemed to choke him.
"Don't you think—" I began a bit unsteadily.
"I think—oh, what a fool I've been!"
That stiffened me.
"Of course, you have," I said cordially. "It's silly to fight the push, isn't it? It's only the cranks that get cocky and think they can upset the fellows on top. The thing to do is to find out which is the stronger—if you're a better man than the other fellow, down him. If he's the champion, enlist under him. But be in it. What's the use of being a kicker all your life? You only let some one else come in for the soft things, while you stay outside and gnaw your finger-nails and plot and plan and starve. You spend your life hoping to live to-morrow, while the Tausigs are living high to-day. The thing to do is to be humble if you can't be arrogant. If they've got you in the door, don't curse, but placate them. Think of Gaffney herding sheep out in Nevada; of Iringer in the asylum; of Howison—"
"Admirable! admirable!" he interrupted sarcastically. "The only fault I have to find with your harangue is that you've misconceived my meaning entirely. But I needn't enlighten you. Good morning, Miss Olden—good-by."
He turned to his desk and pulled out some papers. I knew he wasn't so desperately absorbed in them as he pretended to be.
"Won't you shake hands," I asked, "and wish me luck?"
He put down his pen. His face was white and hard, but as he looked at me it gradually softened.
"I suppose—I suppose, I am a bit unreasonable just this minute," he said slowly. "I'm hard hit and—and I don't just know the way out. Still, I haven't any right to—to expect more of you than there is in you, you poor little thing! It's not your fault, but mine, that I've expected—Oh, for God's sake—Nance—go, and leave me alone!"
I had to take that with me to the Van Twiller, and it wasn't pleasant. But Tausig received me with open arms.
"Got tired of staying out in the cold—eh?" he grinned.
"I'm tired of vaudeville," I answered. "Can't you give me a chance in a comedy?"
"Hm! Ambitious, ain't you?"
"Obermuller has a play all ready for me—written for me. He'd star me fast enough if he had the chance."
"But he'll never get the chance."
"Oh, I don't know."
"But I do. He's on the toboggan; that's where they all get, my dear, when they get big-headed enough to fight us."
"But Obermuller's not like the others. He's not so easy. And he is so clever; why, the plot of that comedy is the bulliest thing—"
"You've read it—you remember it?"
"Oh, I know it by heart—my part of it. You see, he wouldn't keep away from me while he was thinking of it. He kept consulting me about everything in it. In a way, we worked over it together."
The little man looked at me, slowly closing one eye. It is a habit of his when he's going to do something particularly nasty.
"Then, in a way, as you say, it is part yours."
"Hardly! Imagine Nance Olden writing a line of a play!"
"Still you—collaborated; that's the word. I say, my dear, if I could read that comedy, and it was—half what you say it is, I might—I don't promise, mind—but I might let you have the part that was written for you and put the thing on. Has he drilled you any, eh? He was the best stage-manager we ever had before he got the notion of managing for himself—and ruining himself."
"Well, he's all that yet. Of course, he has told me, and we agreed how the thing should be done. As he'd write, you know, he'd read the thing over to me, and I—"
"Fine—fine! A reading from that fool Obermuller would be enough to open the eyes of a clever woman. I'd like to read that comedy—yes?"
"But Obermuller would never—"
"But Olden might—"
"What?"
"Dictate the plot to my secretary, Mason, in there," he nodded his head back toward the inner room. "She could give him the plot and as much of her own part in full as she could remember. You know Mason. Used to be a newspaper man. Smart fellow, that, when he's sober. He could piece out the holes—yes?"
I looked at him. The little beast sat there, slowly closing one eye and opening it again. He looked like an unhealthy little frog, with his bald head, his thin-lipped mouth that laughed, while the wrinkles rayed away from his cold, sneering eyes that had no smile in them.
"I—I wouldn't like to make an enemy of a man like Obermuller, Mr. Tausig."
"Bah! Ain't I told you he's on the toboggan?"
"But you never can tell with a man like that. Suppose he got into that combine with Heffelfinger and Dixon and Weinstock?"
"What're you talking about?"
"Well, it's what I've heard."
"But Heffelfinger and Dixon and Weinstock are all in with us; who told you that fairy story?"
"Obermuller himself."
The little fellow laughed. His is a creaky, almost silent little laugh; if a spider could laugh he'd laugh that way.
"They're fooling him a bunch or two. Never you mind Obermuller. He's a dead one."
"Oh, he said that you thought they were in with you, but that nothing but a written agreement would hold men like that. And that you hadn't got."
"Smart fellow, that Obermuller. He'd have been a good man to have in the business if it hadn't been for those independent ideas he's got. He's right; it takes—"
"So there is an agreement!" I shouted, in spite of myself, as I leaned forward.
He sat back in his chair, or, rather, he let it swallow him again.
"What business is that of yours? Stick to the business on hand. Get to work on that play with Mason inside. If it's good, and we decide to put it on, we'll pay you five hundred dollars down in addition to your salary. If it's rot, you'll have your salary weekly all the time you're at it, just the same as if you were working, till I can place you. In the meantime, keep your ears and eyes open and watch things, and your mouth shut. I'll speak to Mason and he'll be ready for you to-morrow morning. Come round in the morning; there's nobody about then, and we want to keep this thing dark till it's done. Obermuller mustn't get any idea what we're up to.... He don't love you—no—for shaking him?"
"He's furious; wouldn't even say good-by. I'm done for with him, anyway, I guess. But what could I do?"
"Nothing, my dear; nothing. You're a smart little girl," he chuckled. "Ta-ta!"
XIII.
Just what I'd been hoping for I don't know, but I knew that my chance had come that morning.
For a week I had been talking Obermuller's comedy to Mason, the secretary. In the evenings I stood about in the wings and watched the Van Twiller company in Brambles. There was one fat role in it that I just ached for, but I lost all that ache and found another, when I overheard two of the women talking about Obermuller and me one night.
"He found her and made her," one of 'em said; "just dug her out of the ground. See what he's done for her; taught her every blessed thing she knows; wrote her mimicking monologues for her; gave her her chance, and—and now—Well, Tausig don't pay salaries for nothing, and she gets hers as regularly as I draw mine. What more I don't know. But she hasn't set foot on the stage yet under Tausig, and they say Obermuller—"
I didn't get the rest of it, so I don't know what they say about Obermuller. I only know what they've said to him about me. 'Tisn't hard to make men believe those things. But I had to stand it. What could I do? I couldn't tell Fred Obermuller that I was making over his play, soul and as much body as I could remember, to Tausig's secretary. He'd have found that harder to believe than the other thing.
It hasn't been a very happy week for me, I can tell you, Maggie. But I forgot it all, every shiver and ache of it, when I came into the office that morning, as usual, and found Mason alone.
Not altogether alone—he had his bottle. And he had had it and others of the same family all the night before. The poor drunken wretch hadn't been home at all. He was worse than he'd been that morning three days before, when I had stood facing him and talking to him, while with my hands behind my back I was taking a wax impression of the lock of the desk; and he as unconscious of it all as Tausig himself.
The last page I had dictated the day before, which he'd been transcribing from his notes, lay in front of him; the gas was still burning directly above him, and a shade he wore over his weak eyes had been knocked awry as his poor old bald head went bumping down on the type-writer before him.
The thing that favored me was Tausig's distrust of everybody connected with him. He hates his partners only a bit less than he hates the men outside the Trust. The bigger and richer the Syndicate grows, the more power and prosperity it has, the more he begrudges them their share of it; the more he wants it all for himself. He is madly suspicious of his clerks, and hires others to watch them, to spy upon them. He is continually moving his valuables from place to place, partly because he trusts no man; partly because he's so deathly afraid his right hand will find out what his left is doing. He is a full partner of Braun and Lowenthal—with mental reservations. He has no confidence in either of them. Half his schemes he keeps from them; the other half he tells them—part of. He's for ever afraid that the Syndicate of which he's the head will fall to pieces and become another Syndicate of which he won't be head.
It all makes him an unhappy, restless little beast; but it helped me to-day. If it'd been any question of safe combinations and tangled things like that, the game would have been all up for Nancy O. But in his official safe Tausig keeps only such papers as he wants Braun and Lowenthal to see. And in his private desk in his private office he keeps—
I stole past Mason, sleeping with his forehead on the type-writer keys—he'll be lettered like the obelisk when he wakes up—and crept into the next room to see just what Tausig keeps in that private desk of his.
Oh, yes, it was locked. But hadn't I been carrying the key to it every minute for the last forty-eight hours? There must be a mine of stuff in that desk of Tausig's, Mag. The touch of every paper in it is slimy with some dirty trick, some bad secret, some mean action. It's a pity that I hadn't time to go through 'em all; it would have been interesting; but under a bundle of women's letters, which that old fox keeps for no good reason, I'll bet, I lit on a paper that made my heart go bumping like a cart over cobbles.
Yes, there it was, just as Obermuller had vowed it was, with Tausig's cramped little signature followed by Heffelfinger's, Dixon's and Weinstock's; a scheme to crush the business life out of men by the cleverest, up-to-date Trust deviltry; a thing that our Uncle Sammy just won't stand for.
And neither will Nancy Olden, Miss Monahan.
She grabbed that precious paper with a gasp of delight and closed the desk.
But she bungled a bit there, for Mason lifted his head and blinked dazedly at her for a moment, recognized her and shook his head.
"No—work to-day," he said.
"No—I know. I'll just look over what we've done, Mr. Mason," she answered cheerfully.
His poor head went down again with a bob, and she caught up the type-written sheets of Obermuller's play. She waited a minute longer; half because she wanted to make sure Mason was asleep again before she tore the sheets across and crammed them down into the waste-basket; half because she pitied the old fellow and was sorry to take advantage of his condition. But she knew a cure for this last sorry—a way she'd help him later; and when she danced out into the hall she was the very happiest burglar in a world chock full of opportunities.
Oh, she was in such a twitter as she did it! All that old delight in doing somebody else up, a vague somebody whose meannesses she didn't know, was as nothing to the joy of doing Tausig up. She was dancing on a volcano again, that incorrigible Nance! Oh, but such a volcano, Maggie! It atoned for a year of days when there was nothing doing; no excitement, no risk, nothing to keep a girl interested and alive.
And, Maggie darlin', it was a wonderful volcano, that ones that last one, for it worked both ways. It paid up for what I haven't done this past year and what I'll never do again in the years to come. It made up to me for all I've missed and all I'm going to miss. It was a reward of demerit for not being respectable, and a preventive of further sins. Oh, it was such a volcano as never was. It was a drink and a blue ribbon in one. It was a bang-up end and a bully beginning. It was—
It was Tausig coming in as I was going out. Suddenly I realized that, but I was in such a mad whirl of excitement that I almost ran over the little fellow before I could stop myself.
"Phew! What a whirlwind you are!" he cried. "Where are you going?"
"Oh, good morning, Mr. Tausig," I said sweetly. "I never dreamed you'd be down so early in the morning."
"What're you doing with the paper?" he demanded suspiciously.
My eye followed his. I could have beaten Nancy Olden in that minute for not having sense enough to hide that precious agreement, instead of carrying it rolled up in her hand.
"Just taking it home to go over it," I said carelessly, trying to pass him.
But he barred my way.
"Where's Mason?" he asked.
"Poor Mason!" I said. "He's—he's asleep."
"Drunk again?"
I nodded. How to get away!
"That settles his hash. Out he goes to-day ... It seems to me you're in a deuce of a hurry," he added, as I tried to get out again. "Come in; I want to talk something over with you."
"Not this morning," I said saucily. I wanted to cry. "I've got an engagement to lunch, and I want to go over this stuff for Mason before one."
"Hm! An engagement. Who with, now?"
My chin shot up in the air. He laughed, that cold, noiseless little laugh of his.
"But suppose I want you to come to lunch with me?"
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Tausig. But how could I break my engagement with—"
"With Braun?"
"How did you guess it?" I laughed. "There's no keeping anything from you."
He was immensely satisfied with his little self. "I know him—that old rascal," he said slowly. "I say, Olden, just do break that engagement with Braun." "I oughtn't—really."
"But do—eh? Finish your work here and we'll go off together, us two, at twelve-thirty, and leave him cooling his heels here when he comes." He rubbed his hands gleefully.
"But I'm not dressed."
"You'll do for me."
"But not for me. Listen: let me hurry home now and I'll throw Braun over and be back here to meet you at twelve-thirty."
He pursed up his thin little lips and shook his head. But I slipped past him in that minute and got out into the street.
"At twelve-thirty," I called back as I hurried off.
I got around the corner in a jiffy. Oh, I could hardly walk, Mag! I wanted to fly and dance and skip. I wanted to kick up my heels as the children were doing in the Square, while the organ ground out, Ain't It a Shame? I actually did a step or two with them, to their delight, and the first thing I knew I felt a bit of a hand in mine like a cool pink snowflake and—
Oh, a baby, Mag! A girl-baby more than a year old and less than two years young; too little to talk; too big not to walk; facing the world with a winning smile and jabbering things in her soft little lingo, knowing that every woman she meets will understand.
I did, all right. She was saying to me as she kicked out her soft, heelless little boot:
"Nancy Olden, I choose you. Nancy Olden, I love you. Nancy Olden, I dare you not to love me. Nancy Olden, I defy you not to laugh back at me!"
Where in the world she dropped from, heaven knows. The organ-grinder picked up the shafts of his wagon and trundled it away. The piccaninnies melted like magic. But that gay little flirt, about a year and a half old, just held on to my finger and gabbled—poetry.
I didn't realize just then that she was a lost, strayed or stolen. I expected every moment some nurse or conceited mamma to appear and drag her away from me. And I looked down at her—oh, she was just a little bunch of soft stuff; her face was a giggling dimple, framed in a big round hat-halo, that had fallen from her chicken-blond head; and her white dress, with the blue ribbons at the shoulders, was just a little bit dirty. I like 'em a little bit dirty. Why? Perhaps because I can imagine having a little coquette of my own a bit dirty like that, and can't just see Nance Olden with a spick-and-span clean baby, all feathers and lace, like a bored little grown-up.
"You're a mouse," I gurgled down at her. "You're a sweetheart. You're a—"
And suddenly I heard a cry and rush behind me.
It was a false alarm; just a long-legged girl of twelve rushing round the corner, followed by a lot of others. It hadn't been meant for me, of course, but in the second when I had remembered that precious paper and Tausig's rage when he should miss it, I had pulled my hand away from that bit baby's and started to run.
The poor little tot! There isn't any reason in the world for the fancies they take any more than for our own; eh, Mag? Why should she have been attracted to me just because I was so undignified as to dance with the piccaninnies?
But do you know what that little thing did? She thought I was playing with her. She gave a crow of delight and came bowling after me.
That finished me. I stooped and picked her up in my arms, throwing her up in the air to hear her crow and feel her come down again.
"Mouse," I said, "we'll just have a little trip together. The nurse that'd lose you deserves to worry till you're found. The mother that's lucky enough to own you will be benefited hereafter by a sharp scare on your account just now. Come on, sweetheart!"
Oh, the feel of a baby in your arms, Mag! It makes the Cruelty seem a perfectly unreal thing, a thing one should be unutterably ashamed of imagining, of accusing human nature of; a thing only an irredeemably vile thing could imagine. Just the weight of that little body riding like a bonny boat at anchor on your arm, just the cocky little way it sits up, chirping and confident; just the light touch of a bit of a hand on your collar; just that is enough to push down brick walls; to destroy pictures of bruised and maimed children that endure after the injuries are healed; to scatter records that even I—I, Nancy Olden—can't believe and believe, too, that other women have carried their babies, as I did some other woman's baby, across the Square.
On the other side I set her down. I didn't want to. I was greedy of every moment that I had her. But I wanted to get some change ready before climbing up the steps to the L-station.
She clutched my dress as we stood there a minute in a perfectly irresistible way. I know now why men marry baby-women: it's to feel that delicious, helpless clutch of weak fingers; the clutch of dependence, of trust, of appeal.
I looked down at her with that same silly adoration I've seen on Molly's face for her poor, lacking, twisted boy. At least, I did in the beginning. But gradually the expression of my face must have changed; for all at once I discovered what had been done to me.
My purse was gone.
Yes, Maggie Monahan, clean gone! My pocket had been as neatly picked as I myself—well, never mind, as what. I threw back my head and laughed aloud. Nance Olden, the great doer-up, had been done up so cleverly, so surely, so prettily, that she hadn't had an inkling of it.
I wished I could get a glimpse of the clever girl that did it. A girl—of course, it was! Do you think any boy's fingers could do a job like that and me not even know?
But I didn't stop to wish very long. Here was I with the thing I valued most in the world still clutched in my hand, and not a nickel to my name to get me, the paper, and the baby on our way.
It was the baby, of course, that decided me. You can't be very enterprising when you're carrying a pink lump of sweetness that's all a-smile at the moment, but may get all a-tear the next.
"It's you for the nearest police station, you young tough!" I said, squeezing her. "I can't take you home now and show you to Mag."
But she giggled and gurgled back at me, the abandoned thing, as though the police station was just the properest place for a young lady of her years.
It was not so very near, either, that station. My arm ached when I got there from carrying her, but my heart ached, too, to leave her. I told the matron how and where the little thing had picked me up. At first she wouldn't leave me, but—the fickle little thing—a glass of milk transferred all her smiles and wiles to the matron. Then we both went over her clothes to find a name or an initial or a laundry mark. But we found nothing. The matron offered me a glass of milk, too, but I was in a hurry to be gone. She was a nice matron; so nice that I was just about to ask her for the loan of car-fare when—
When I heard a voice, Maggie, in the office adjoining. I knew that voice all right, and I knew that I had to make a decision quick.
I did. I threw the whole thing into the lap of Fate. And when I opened the door and faced him I was smiling.
Oh, yes, it was Tausig.
XIV.
He started as though he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw me. "The Lord hath delivered mine enemy into my hand," shone in his evil little face.
"Why, Mr. Tausig," I cried, before he could get his breath. "How odd to meet you here! Did you find a baby, too?"
"Did I find—" He glared at me. "I find you; that's enough. Now—"
"But the luncheon was to be at twelve-thirty," I laughed. "And I haven't changed my dress yet."
"You'll change it all right for something not so becoming if you don't shell out that paper."
"Paper?"
"Yes, paper. Look here, if you give it back to me this minute—now—I'll not prosecute you for—for—"
"For the sake of my reputation?" I suggested softly.
"Yes." He looked doubtfully at me, mistrusting the amiable deference of my manner.
"That would be awfully good of you," I murmured.
He did not answer, but watched me as though he wasn't sure which way I'd jump the next moment.
"I wonder what could induce you to be so forgiving," I went on musingly. "What sort of paper is this you miss? It must be valuable—"
"Yes, it's valuable all right. Come on, now! Quit your fooling and get down to business. I'm going to have that paper."
"Do you know, Mr. Tausig," I said impulsively, "if I were you, and anybody had stolen a valuable paper from me, I'd have him arrested. I would. I should not care a rap what the public exposure did to his reputation, so long—so long," I grinned right up at him, "so long as it didn't hurt me, myself, in the eyes of the law."
Mad? Oh, he was hopping! A German swear-word burst from him. I don't know what it meant, but I can imagine.
"Look here, I give you one more chance," he squeaked; "if you don't—"
"What'll you do?"
I was sure I had him. I was sure, from the very whisper in which he had spoken, that the last thing in the world he wanted was to have that agreement made public by my arrest. But I tripped up on one thing. I didn't know there was a middle way for a man with money.
His manner changed.
"Nance Olden," he said aloud now, "I charge you with stealing a valuable private paper of mine from my desk. Here, Sergeant!"
I hadn't particularly noticed the Sergeant standing at the other door with his back to us. But from the way he came at Tausig's call I knew he'd had a private talk with him, and I knew he'd found the middle way.
"This girl's taken a paper of mine. I want her searched," Tausig cried.
"Do you mean," I said, "that you'll sign your name to such a charge against me?"
He didn't answer. He had pulled the Sergeant down and was whispering in his ear. I knew what that meant. It meant a special pull and a special way of doing things and—
"You'll do well, my girl, to give up Mr. Tausig's property to him," the Sergeant said stiffly.
"But what have I got that belongs to him?" I demanded.
He grinned and shrugged his big shoulders.
"We've a way of finding out, you know, here. Give it up or—"
"But what does he say I've taken? What charge is there against me? Have you the right to search any woman who walks in here? And what in the world would I want a paper of Tausig's for?"
"You won't give it up then?" He tapped a bell.
A woman came in. I had a bad minute there, but it didn't last; it wasn't the matron I'd brought the baby to.
"You'll take this girl into the other room and search her thoroughly. The thing we're looking for—" The Sergeant turned to Tausig.
"A small paper," he said eagerly. "A—a contract—just a single sheet of legal cap paper it was type-written and signed by myself and some other gentlemen, and folded twice."
The woman looked at me. She was a bit hard-mouthed, with iron-gray hair, but her eyes looked as though they'd seen a lot and learned not to flinch, though they still felt like it. I knew that kind of look—I'd seen it at the Cruelty.
"What an unpleasant job this of yours is," I said to her, smiling up at her for all the world as that tike of a baby had smiled at me, and watching her melt just as I had. "I'll not make it a bit harder. This thing's all a mistake. Which way? ... I'll come back, Mr. Tausig, to receive your apology, but you can hardly expect me to go to lunch after this."
He growled a wrathful, resenting mouthful. But he looked a bit puzzled just the same.
He looked more puzzled yet, even bewildered, when we came back into the main office a quarter of an hour later, the woman and I, and she reported that no paper of any kind had she found.
Me? Oh, I was sweet amiability personified with the woman and with the Sergeant, who began to back-water furiously. But with Tausig—
What? You don't mean to say you're not on, Mag? Oh, dear, dear, it's well you had that beautiful wig of red hair that puts even Carter's in the shade; for you'd never have been a success in—in other businesses I might name.
Bamboozled the woman? Not a bit of it; you can't deceive women with mouths and eyes like that. It was just that I'd had a flash of genius in the minute I heard Tausig's voice, and in spite of my being so sure he wouldn't have me arrested I'd— Guess, Mag, guess! There was only one way.
The baby, of course! In the moment I had—it wasn't long—I'd stooped down, pretending to kiss that cherub good-by, and in a jiffy I'd pinned that precious paper with a safety-pin to the baby's under-petticoat, preferring that risk to—
Risk! I should say it was. And now it was up to Nance to make good.
While Tausig insisted and explained and expostulated and at last walked out with the Sergeant—giving me a queer last look that was half-cursing, half-placating—I stood chatting sweetly with the woman who had searched me.
I didn't know just how far I might go with her. She knew the paper wasn't on me, and I could see she was disposed to believe I was as nice as she'd have liked me to be. But she'd had a lot of experience and she knew, as most women do even without experience, that if there's not always fire where there is smoke, it's because somebody's been clever enough and quick enough to cover the blaze.
"Well, good-by," I said, putting out my hand. "It's been disagreeable but I'm obliged to you for—why, where's my purse! We must have left it—" And I turned to go back into the room where I'd undressed.
"You didn't have any."
The words came clear and cold and positive. Her tone was like an icicle down my back.
"I didn't have any!" I exclaimed. "Why, I certainly—"
"You certainly had no purse, for I should have seen it and searched it if you had."
Now, what do you think of a woman like that?
"Nancy Olden," I said to myself, more in sorrow than in anger, "you've met your match right here. When a woman knows a fact and states it with such quiet conviction, without the least unnecessary emphasis and not a superfluous word, 'ware that woman. There's only one game to play to let you hang round here a bit longer and find out what's become of the baby. Play it!"
I looked at her with respect; it was both real and feigned.
"Of course, you must be right," I said humbly. "I know you wouldn't be likely to make a mistake, but, just to convince me, do you mind letting me go back to look?"
"Not at all," she said placidly. "If I go with you there's no reason why you should not look."
Oh, Mag, it was hard lines looking. Why?—Why, because the place was so bare and so small. There were so few things to move and it took such a short time, in spite of all I could do and pretend to do, that I was in despair.
"You must be right," I said at length, looking woefully up at her.
"Yes; I knew I was," she said steadily.
"I must have lost it."
"Yes."
There was no hope there. I turned to go.
"I'll lend you a nickel to get home, if you'll leave me your address," she said after a moment.
Oh, that admirable woman! She ought to be ruling empires instead of searching thieves. Look at the balance of her, Mag. My best acting hadn't shaken her. She hadn't that fatal curiosity to understand motives that wrecks so many who deal with—we'll call them the temporarily un-straight. She was satisfied just not to let me get ahead of her in the least particular. But she wasn't mean, and she would lend me a nickel—not an emotionally extravagant ten-cent piece, but just a nickel—on the chance that I was what I seemed to be.
Oh, I did admire her; but I'd have been more enthusiastic about it if I could have seen my way clear to the baby and the paper.
I took the nickel and thanked her, but effusiveness left her unmoved. A wholesome, blue-gowned rock with a neat, full-bibbed white apron; that's what she was!
And still I lingered. Fancy Nance Olden just heartbroken at being compelled to leave a police station!
But there was nothing for it. Go, I had to. My head was a-whirl with schemes coming forward with suggestions and being dismissed as unsuitable; my thoughts were flying about at such a dizzy rate while I stood there in the doorway, the woman's patient hand on the knob and her watchful eyes on me, that I actually—
Mag, I actually didn't hear the matron's voice the first time she spoke.
The second time, though, I turned—so happy I could not keep the tremor out of my voice.
"I thought you had gone long ago," she said.
Oh, we were friends, we two! We'd chummed over a baby, which for women is like what taking a drink together is for men. The admirable dragon in the blue dress didn't waver a bit because her superior spoke pleasantly to me. She only watched and listened.
Which puts you in a difficult position when your name's Nance Olden—you have to tell the truth.
"I've been detained," I said with dignity, "against my wish. But that's all over. I'm going now. Good-by." I nodded and caught up my skirt. "Oh!" I paused just as the admirable dragon was closing the door on me. "Is the baby asleep? I wonder if I might see her once more."
My heart was beating like an engine gone mad, in spite of my careless tone, and there was a buzzing in my ears that deafened me. But I managed to stand still and listen, and then to walk off, as though it didn't matter in the least to me, while her words came smashing the hope out of me.
"We've sent her with an officer back to the neighborhood where you found her. He'll find out where she belongs, no doubt. Good day."