XV.
Ah me, Maggie, the miserable Nance that went away from that station!To have had your future in your grasp, like that one of the Fates withthe string, and then to have it snatched from you by an impish breezeand blown away, goodness knows where!
I don't know just which way I turned after I left that station. Ididn't care where I went. Nothing I could think of gave me anycomfort. I tried to fancy myself coming home to you. I tried to seemyself going down to tell the whole thing to Obermuller. But Icouldn't do that. There was only one thing I wanted to say to FredObermuller, and that thing I couldn't say now.
But Nance Olden's not the girl to go round long like a molting hen.There was only one chance in a hundred, and that was the one I took, ofcourse.
"Back to the Square where you found the baby, Nance!" I cried tomyself. "There's the chance that that admirable dragon has had hersuspicions aroused by your connection with the baby, which she hadn'tknown before, and has already dutifully notified the Sergeant. There'sthe chance that the baby is home by now, and the paper found by hermother will be turned over to her papa; and then it's good-by to yourscheme. There's the chance that--"
But in the heart of me I didn't believe in any chance but one--thechance that I'd find that blessed baby and get my fingers just oncemore on that precious paper.
I blew in the A.D.'s nickel on a cross-town car and got back to thelittle Square. There was another organ-grinder there grinding outcoon-songs, to which other piccaninnies danced. But nary a littlewhite bundle of fluff caught hold of my hand. I walked that Squaretill my feet were sore. It was hot. My throat was parched. I washungry. My head ached. I was hopeless. And yet I just couldn't giveit up. I had asked so many children and nurse-maids whether they'dheard of the baby lost that morning and brought back by an officer,that they began to look at me as though I was not quite right in mymind. The maids grabbed the children if they started to come near me,and the children stared at me with big round eyes, as though they'dbeen told I was an ogre who might eat them.
I was hungry enough to. The little fruit-stand at the entrance had afascination for me. I found myself there time and again, till I gotafraid I might actually try to get of with a peach or a bunch ofgrapes. That thought haunted me. Fancy Nance Olden starved andblundering into the cheapest and most easily detected species ofthieving!
I suppose great generals in their hour of defeat imagine themselvesdoing the feeblest, foolishest things. As I sat there on the bench,gazing before me, I saw the whole thing--Nancy Olden, after all herbragging, her skirmishing, her hairbreadth scapes and successes,arrested in broad daylight and before witnesses for having stolen acool, wet bunch of grapes, worth a nickel, for her hot, dry, hungeringthroat! I saw the policeman that'd do it; he looked like that SergeantMulhill I met 'way, 'way back in Latimer's garden. I saw the officerthat'd receive me; he had blue eyes like the detective that came for meto the Manhattan. I saw the woman jailer--oh, she was the A.D., allright, who'd receive me without the slightest emotion, show me to acell and lock the door, as calm, as little triumphant or affected, asthough I hadn't once outwitted that cleverest of creatures--andoutwitted myself in forestalling her. I saw--
Mag, guess what I saw! No, truly; what I really saw? It made me jumpto my feet and grab it with a squeal.
I saw my own purse lying on the gravel almost at my feet, near thelittle fruit-stand that had tempted me.
Blank empty it was, stripped clean, not a penny left in it, not apaper, not a stamp, not even my key. Just the same I was glad to haveit. It linked me in a way to the place. The clever little girl thathad stolen it had been here in this park, on this very spot. Thethought of that cute young Nance Olden distracted my mind a minute frommy worry--and, oh, Maggie darlin', I was worrying so!
I walked up to the fruit-stand with the purse in my hand. The oldfellow who kept it looked up with an inviting smile. Lord knows, heneedn't have encouraged me to buy if I'd had a penny.
"I want to ask you," I said, "if you remember selling a lot of goodthings to a little girl who had a purse this--this morning?"
I showed it to him, and he turned it over in his crippled old hands.
"It was full then--or fuller, anyway," I suggested.
"You wouldn't want to get her into trouble--that little girl?" he askedcautiously.
I laughed. "Not I. I--myself--"
I was going to say--well, you can imagine what I was going to say, andthat I didn't say it or anything like it.
"Well--there she is, Kitty Wilson, over yonder," he said.
I gasped, it was so unexpected. And I turned to look. There on one ofthe benches sat Kitty Wilson. If I hadn't been blind as a bat and fullof trouble--oh, it thickens your wits, does trouble, and blinds youreyes and muffles your ears!--I'd have suspected something at the meresight of her. For there sat Kitty Wilson enthroned, a hatless, lanklittle creature about twelve, and near her, clustered thick as antsaround a lump of sugar, was a crowd of children, black and white, boysand girls. For Kitty--that deplorable Kitty--had money to burn; orwhat was even more effective at her age, she had goodies to give away.Her lap was full of spoils. She had a sample of every good thing thefruit-stand offered. Her cheeks and lips were smeary with candy. Herdress was stained with fruit. The crumbs of cake lingered still on herchin and apron. And Kitty--I love a generous thief--was treating thegang.
It helped itself from her abundant lap; it munched and gobbled andasked for more. It was a riot of a high old time. Even the birds werehopping about as near as they dared, picking up the crumbs, and thesquirrels had peanuts to throw to the birds.
And all on Nancy Olden's money!
I laughed till I shook. It was good to laugh. Nancy Olden isn'taccustomed to a long dose of the doleful, and it doesn't agree withher. I strolled over to where my guests were banqueting.
You see, Mag, that's where I shouldn't rank with the A.D. I'm tooinquisitive. I want to know how the other fellow in the case feels andthinks. It isn't enough for me to see him act.
"Kitty," I said--somehow a twelve-year-old makes you feel more of agrown-up than a twelve-months-old does--"I hope you're having agood--time, Kitty Wilson, but--haven't you lost something?"
She was chewing at the end of a long string of blackcandy-shoe-strings, all right, the stuff looks like--and she was eatingjust because she didn't want to stop. Goodness knows, she was fullenough. Her jaws stopped, though, suddenly, as she looked from theempty purse in my outstretched hand to me, and took me in.
Oh, I know that pause intimately. It says: "Wait a minute, till I getmy breath, and I'll know how much you know and just what lie to tellyou."
But she changed her mind when she saw my face. You know, Mag, ifthere's a thing that's fixed in your memory it's the face of the bodyyou've done up. The respectables have their rogues' gallery, but we,that is, the light-fingered brigade, have got a fools' gallery tocorrespond to it.
In which of 'em is my picture? Now, Margaret, that's mean. You knowmy portrait hangs in both.
I looked down on the little beggar that had painted me for the secondsalon, and lo, in a flash she was on her feet, the lapful of goodthings tumbled to the ground, and Kitty was off.
I was bitterly disappointed in that girl, Mag! I was altogethermistaken in my diagnosis of her. Hers is only a physical cleverness, atalented dexterity. She had no resource in time of danger but herlegs. And legs will not carry a grafter half so far as a good, quicktongue and a steady head.
She halted at a safe distance and glared back at me. Her hostilityexcited the crowd of children--her push--against me, and the braverones jeered the things Kitty only looked, while the thrifty onesstooped and gathered up the spoil.
"Tell her I wouldn't harm her," I said to one of her lieutenants.
"She says she won't hurt ye, Kit," the child screamed.
"She dassent," yelled back Kitty, the valiant. "She knows I'd peach onher about the kid."
"Kid! What kid?" I c
ried, all a-fire.
"The kid ye swiped this mornin'. Yah! I told the cop what brought herback how ye took her jest as I--"
"Kitty!" I cried. "You treasure!" And with all my might I ran afterher.
Silly? Of course it was. I might have known what the short skirtsabove those thin legs meant. I couldn't come within fifty feet of her.I halted, panting, and she paused, too, dancing tantalizingly half ablock away.
What to do? I wished I had another purse to bestow on that sad Kitty,but I had nothing, absolutely nothing, except--all at once I rememberedit--that little pin you gave me for Christmas, Mag. I took it off andturned to appeal to the nearest one of the flying body-guard that hadaccompanied us.
"You run on to her and tell her that if she'll show me the house wherethat baby lives I'll give her this pin."
He sped on ahead and parleyed with Kit; and while they talked I heldaloft the little pin so that Kit might see the price.
She hesitated so long that I feared she'd slip through my hands, but asudden rival voice piping out, "I'll show ye the house, Missus," wastoo much for her.
So, with Kit at a safe distance in advance to guard against treachery,and a large and enthusiastic following, I crossed the street, turned acorner, walked down one block and half up another, and halted before athree-story brownstone.
I flew up the stairs, leaving my escort behind, and rang the bell. Itwasn't so terribly swagger a place, which relieved me some.
"I want to see the lady whose baby was lost this morning," I said tothe maid that opened the door.
"Yes'm. Who'll I tell her?"
Who? That stumped me. Not Nance Olden, late of the Vaudeville, laterof the Van Twiller, and latest of the police station. No--not NanceOlden ... not ...
"Tell her, please," I said firmly, "that I'm Miss Murieson, of theX-Ray, and that the city editor has sent me here to see her."
That did it. Hooray for the power of the press! She showed me into along parlor, and I sat down and waited.
It was cool and quiet and softly pretty in that long parlor. Theshades were down, the piano was open, the chairs were low and softlycushioned. I leaned back and closed my eyes, exhausted.
And suddenly--Mag!--I felt something that was a cross between arose-leaf and a snowflake touch my hand.
If it wasn't that delectable baby!
I caught her and lifted her to my lap and hugged the chuckling thing asthough that was what I came for. Then, in a moment, I remembered thepaper and lifted her little white slip.
It was gone, Mag. The under-petticoat hadn't a sign of the paper I'dpinned to it.
My head whirled in that minute. I suppose I was faint with the heat,with hunger and fatigue and worry, but I felt myself slipping out ofthings when I heard the rustling of skirts, and there before me stoodthe mother of my baby.
The little wretch! She deserted me and flew to that pretty mother ofhers in her long, cool white trailing things, and sat in her arms andmocked at me.
It was easy enough to begin talking. I told her a tale about being anewspaper woman out on a story; how I'd run across the baby and all therest of it.
"I must ask your pardon," I finished up, "for disturbing you, but twothings sent me here--one to know if the baby got home safe, and theother," I gulped, "to ask about a paper with some notes that I'd pinnedto her skirt."
She shook her head.
It was in that very minute that I noticed the baby's ribbons were pink;they had been blue in the morning.
"Of course," I suggested, "you've had her clothes changed and--"
"Why, yes, of course," said baby's mother. "The first thing I did whenI got hold of her was to strip her and put her in a tub; the second,was to discharge that gossiping nurse for letting her out of her sight."
"And the soiled things she had on--the dress with the blue ribbons?"
"I'll find out," she said.
She rang for the maid and gave her an order.
"Was it a valuable paper?" she asked.
"Not--very," I stammered. My tongue was thick with hope and dread."Just--my notes, you know, but I do need them. I couldn't carry thebaby easily, so I pinned them on her skirt, thinking--thinking--"
The maid came in and dumped a little heap of white before me. I fell onmy knees.
Oh, yes, I prayed all right, but I searched, too. And there it was.
What I said to that woman I don't know even now. I flew out throughthe hall and down the steps and--
And there Kitty Wilson corralled me.
"Say, where's that stick-pin?" she cried.
"Here!--here, you darling!" I said, pressing it into her hand. "And,Kitty, whenever you feel like swiping another purse--just don't do it.It doesn't pay. Just you come down to the Vaudeville and ask for NanceOlden some day, and I'll tell you why."
"Gee!" said Kitty, impressed. "Shall--shall I call ye a hansom, lady?"
Should she! The blessed inspiration of her!
I got into the wagon and we drove down street--to the Vaudeville.
I burst in past the stage doorkeeper, amazed to see me, and rushed intoFred Obermuller's office.
"There!" I cried, throwing that awful paper on the desk before him."Now cinch 'em, Fred Obermuller, as they cinched you. It'll be theholiest blackmail that ever--oh, and will you pay for the hansom?"