And now he saw her quite unromantically catch the heel of one slipper on the edge of a step and reach wildly for support. This impulsive movement sent the other slipper flying through the air. It described a graceful arc and landed on the sidewalk. The girl sat down heavily.
Fleming Knibbs congratulated himself on this heaven-sent opportunity to acquaint himself with her, as he stooped and retrieved the itinerant slipper. He turned, smiling pleasantly.
“Allow me,” he said, and fitted it to her unshod foot.
“Thank you.” Her voice was drowsy, as though it were early morning and she had just arisen.
He looked at her sharply. “You’re not hurt?”
“Not at all,” she replied in the same monotone, getting to her feet. She was an extremely pretty girl, Knibbs noted again, and wondered at finding her in this contrasting environment. He fell in step beside her, inquiring meanwhile if he might escort her to her destination.
“If you wish,” she conceded.
She was obviously tired, physically or mentally or both. Fleming’s interest was intrigued.
And now they found themselves in a more populated section. The street grew crooked. Situated in the tenderloin’s heart, it turned and twisted convulsively, a veritable aorta of floating human derelicts writhing toward the river and a cheap amusement park on its banks. But the girl avoided the park, turning in an opposite direction. The crowd began to thin out. At the last comer, across from innumerable shadowy wharves, and reveling in an unaccountable river stench, stood a wabbly fruit stand illuminated by a single flaring gas jet. Dirty, flimsy wooden baskets containing all manner of fruits and vegetables tipped their rims partly toward the curb and partly toward the dark heavens, while here and there a shadowy head of cabbage peeped out upon this dreary vista. On a soap box by the stand, and directly under the uncertain light, sat a mere boy, thin of limb and vicious of feature, hunched intently over a Yiddish newspaper.
They passed this last outpost of the underworld, Fleming’s curiosity growing apace. On the left stretched acres of slimy marshes, and beyond, only faintly discernible in the growing darkness, the river. It was too much for young Knibbs. He stopped in his tracks.
“What—?” he began, and then his mouth opened in surprise and astonishment, and he concluded “—the devil!”
For a blunt automatic had been thrust against his ribs, and the girl in the dark skirt and white slippers was talking to him in her soft, sleepy drawclass="underline" “Be still, or I shall have to shoot you.”
Then deliberately she set about “frisking” him. Her slender fingers plucked his scarfpin, his watch and at length found the inner pocket of his coat and his wallet.
She was talking again. “Now, then, stand as you are.” She began backing away. “I am watching you. If you move an inch—”
The rest was left to be inferred. The click of her high heels on the sidewalk grew less and less distinct until it became inaudible.
Whirling, Fleming Knibbs dashed toward the corner. No one was in sight. The young Jew, as before, was hunched over his paper.
“A girl—” panted Knibbs. “She came in this direction. Have you seen her?”
“I see no vun,” replied the boy, sourly; then, observing for the first time the well-groomed man before him, his trade instincts arose to the surface and he became suddenly ingratiating, “except” he emphasized, rubbing his skinny hands in anticipation, “my customers.”
Fleming’s wallet was gone, but he still had some change. One hand went readily to his pocket, emerging with a bright half-dollar.
“Here’s the price of a dozen apples, my boy,” he said. “Eat them yourself. Now which way did she go?”
The youth pocketed his reward, pointing meanwhile to one of the numerous small streets opening on the waterfront. Before he could speak Knibbs was off.
Doing a hundred yards in eleven flat, he came to a thoroughfare with car tracks. The girl was nowhere in sight. In the distance the vanishing lights of a trolley winked at him derisively.
“Gone!” he exclaimed in disgust. Then, brightening: “But wasn’t she a peach?”
He caught the next car, intending to return home. When seated, he mentally inventoried his losses. There were several hundred dollars in the wallet. The pin was worth five hundred and the watch another hundred. All told, she had netted close to a thousand dollars. “Not bad, for a half-asleep girl,” he commented to himself.
The thought occurred to him that the whole matter should be reported at police headquarters, but in the instance he had strange scruples which he himself could not explain. He tried to console his conscience by emphasizing the fact that the loss meant nothing to him. Then he happily remembered his friend, Simeon Dreer, of the murder squad, who was occasionally willing, if caught in the mood, to aid his friends; in working out their little problems. He promptly left the car and took another one cross-town.
Half an hour later he found himself in Dreer’s apartment. The little, weazened man in huge green spectacles like twin railroad signals was talking on the telephone when Knibbs entered.
“Very well. I shall go there immediately,” Fleming heard him say, and his disappointment was keen, for he knew the old fellow was being called out on a departmental case.
Simeon Dreer replaced the receiver on its hook and came toward Knibbs, peering intently with his near-sighted eyes.
“Ah, it’s young Fleming Knibbs,” he said at length in the tone of a discoverer. “Hello, Knibbs. Hello. Sorry I can’t entertain you; I’m called out. Drop in tomorrow, eh? I’ve a couple of new records. A serenade from Les Millions d’Arlequin, and—”
Dreer was a musical enthusiast with a pronounced leaning toward the classical.-
“I’ve been robbed,” announced Fleming, “and I thought perhaps—”
“Robbed?”
“Held up.”
“No! When?”
“Not an hour ago.”
“This is interesting. I should like to hear the details. As I said, I’m called out on a case: supposed suicide which may be a murder; but if you care to go along, we’ll talk about it on the way over.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
They were on the street in a jiffy. Knibbs hailed a taxi and leaped in while wrinkled old Simeon Dreer confided his destination to the chauffeur. Shortly they were bowling along at a good speed, with Dreer sitting quietly listening to his guest’s story. When it had been concluded, the murder squad man chuckled. By the weak light of the street lamps Fleming saw his green glasses bobbing up and down.
“Very, very interesting, young Knibbs,” he commented, when his mirth had subsided. “I shall look into it at the first opportunity. And on what street, by the way, did you meet this fair highwaywoman?”
The moneyed young man slapped his knee sharply. “By Jove, I’m an unobservant idiot. I can’t tell you the name of that street. I was too busy soaking up its atmosphere.”
“You would know it if you saw it?”
“From a million-.There’s nothing like it in the Western world.”
“I believe I know the one you mean. In fact—”
At that moment the taxi stopped joltingly.
Dreer threw open the door and clambered out.
“In fact, young Knibbs,” he called over his shoulder, “if you will look around, I think you will find that you are on it now.”
II
Knibbs emerged hurriedly. The old fellow was right. They were on the very street in which his adventures had originated. And more. They were facing the self-same rickety frame dwelling from which the half-asleep girl had come not two hours before!
Simeon Dreer observed the fixity of his companion’s gaze, and inferred the truth. “So this is her home, eh?” he said softly. “Well—now we have complications; for here, also, this evening, a suicide was committed.”