第74章 AGGIE AT BAY(4)

As the detective expressed it in his own vernacular: For the first time in his experience, the Inspector appeared to be actually "rattled."For a little time, there was silence, the while Burke sat staring at the averted face of the girl.His expression was that of one who has just undergone a soul-stirring shock.Then, presently, he set his features grimly, rose from his chair, and walked to a position directly in the front of the girl, who still refused to look in his direction.

"Young woman----" he began, severely.Then, of a sudden he laughed."You picked the right business, all right, all right!"he said, with a certain enthusiasm.He laughed aloud until his eyes were only slits, and his ample paunch trembled vehemently.

"Well," he went on, at last, "I certainly have to hand it to you, kid.You're a beaut'!"Aggie sniffed vehemently in rebuke of the gross partiality of fate in his behalf.

"Just as I had him goin'!" she said bitterly, as if in self-communion, without shifting her gaze from the blank surface of the wall.

Now, however, Burke was reminded once again of his official duties, and he turned quickly to the attentive Cassidy.

"Have you got a picture of this young woman?" he asked brusquely.And when Cassidy had replied in the negative, he again faced the adventuress with a mocking grin--in which mockery, too, was a fair fragment for himself, who had been so thoroughly within her toils of blandishment.

"I'd dearly love to have a photograph of you, Miss Helen Travers West," he said.

The speech aroused the stolid detective to a new interest.

"Helen Travers West?" he repeated, inquiringly.

"Oh, that's the name she told me," the Inspector explained, somewhat shamefacedly before this question from his inferior.

Then he chuckled, for he had sense of humor sufficient to triumph even over his own discomfiture in this encounter."And she had me winging, too!" he confessed."Yes, I admit it." He turned to the girl admiringly."You sure are immense, little one --immense!" He smiled somewhat more in his official manner of mastery."And now, may I have the honor of asking you to accept the escort of Mr.Cassidy to our gallery."Aggie sprang to her feet and regarded the Inspector with eyes in which was now no innocence, such as had beguiled him so recently from those ingenuous orbs.

"Oh, can that stuff!" she cried, crossly."Let's get down to business on the dot--and no frills on it! Keep to cases!""Now you're talking," Burke declared, with a new appreciation of the versatility of this woman--who had not been wasting her time hitherto, and had no wish to lose it now.

"You can't do anything to us," Aggie declared, strongly.There remained no trace of the shrinking violet that had been Miss Helen Travers West.Now, she revealed merely the business woman engaged in a fight against the law, which was opposed definitely to her peculiar form of business.

"You can't do anything to me, and you know you can't!" she went on, with an almost convincing tranquillity of assertion."Why, I'll be sprung inside an hour." There came a ripple of laughter that reminded the Inspector of the fashion in which he had been overcome by this woman's wiles.And she spoke with a certitude of conviction that was rather terrifying to one who had just fallen under the stress of her spells.

"Why, habeas corpus is my lawyer's middle name!""On the level, now," the Inspector demanded, quite unmoved by the final declarations, "when did you see Mary Turner last?"Aggie resorted anew to her practices of deception.Her voice held the accents of unimpeachable truth, and her eyes looked unflinchingly into those of her questioner as she answered.

"Early this morning," she declared."We slept together last night, because I had the willies.She blew the joint about half-past ten."Burke shook his head, more in sorrow than in anger.

"What's the use of your lying to me?" he remonstrated.