the outcome of information given by a well-known Senator, the police have obtained an important clue which leads straight to a house in One Hundred and Twelfth Street.
“Well,” mused Winifred, wide-eyed with astonishment. “Fancy that! The very street where I live!”
She read on:
The arrest of at least one person, a woman, suspected of complicity in the crime may occur at any moment. Detectives are convinced that the trail of the murderers will soon be clearer.
Every effort is being made to recover Mr. Tower’s body, which, it is conceivable, may have been weighted and sunk in the river near the spot where the boat was tied.
Winifred gave more attention to the newspaper report than to her frugal meal. Resolving, however, that Miss Sugg should have no further cause for complaint that day, she returned to the factory five minutes before time. An automobile was standing outside the entrance, but she paid no heed to it.
The checker tapped at his little window as she passed.
“The boss wants you,” he said.
“Me!” she cried. Her heart sank. Between Miss Sugg and Mr. Fowle she had already probably lost her situation!
“Yep,” said the man. “You’re Winifred Bartlett, I guess. Anyhow, if there’s another peach like you in the bunch I haven’t seen her.”
She bit her lip and tears trembled in her eyes. Perhaps the gruff Cerberus behind the window sympathized with her. He lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper: “There’s a cop in there, an’ a ‘tec,’ too.”
Winifred was startled out of her forebodings.
“They cannot want me!” she said amazedly.
“You never can tell, girlie. Queer jinks happen sometimes. I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if they rounded up the boss hisself.”
She was sure now that some stupid mistake had been made. At any rate, she no longer dreaded dismissal, and the first intuition of impending calamity yielded to a nervous curiosity as she pushed open a door leading to the general office.
CHAPTER IV
FURTHER SURPRISES
A clerk, one of the would-be swains who had met with chilling discouragement after working-hours, was evidently on the lookout for her. An ignoble soul prompted a smirk of triumph now.
“Go straight in,” he said, jerking a thumb. “A cop’s waitin’ for you.”
Winifred did not vouchsafe him even an indignant glance. Holding her head high, she passed through the main office, and made for a door marked “Manager.” She knocked, and was admitted by Mr. Fowle. Grouped around a table she saw one of the members of the firm, the manager, a policeman, and a dapper little man, slight of figure, who held himself very erect. He was dressed in blue serge, and had the ivory-white face and wrinkled skin of an actor. She was conscious at once of the penetration of his glance. His eyes were black and luminous. They seemed to pierce her with an X-ray quality of comprehension.
“This is the girl,” announced Mr. Fowle deferentially.
The little man in the blue suit took the lead forthwith.
“You are Winifred Bartlett?” he said, and by some subtle inter-flow of magnetism Winifred knew instantly that she had nothing to fear from this diminutive stranger.
“Yes,” she replied, looking at him squarely.
“You live in East One Hundred and Twelfth Street?”
“Yes.”
“With a woman described as your aunt, and known as Miss Rachel Craik?”
“Yes.”
Each affirmative marked a musical crescendo. Especially was Winifred surprised by the sceptical description of her only recognized relative.
“Well,” went on Clancy, suppressing a smile at the girl’s naïve astonishment, “don’t be alarmed, but I want you to come with me to Mulberry Street.”
Now, Winifred had just been reading about certain activities in Mulberry Street, and her eyebrows rounded in real amazement.
“Isn’t that the Police Headquarters?” she asked.
Fowle chuckled, whereupon Clancy said pleasantly:
“Yes. One man here seems to know the address quite intimately. But that fact need not set your heart fluttering. The chief of the Detective Bureau wishes to put a few questions. That is all.”
“Questions about what?”
Winifred’s natural dignity came to her aid. She refused to have this grave matter treated as a joke.
“Take my advice, Miss Bartlett, and don’t discuss things further until you have met Mr. Steingall,” said Clancy.
“But I have never even heard of Mr. Steingall,” she protested. “What right have you or he to take me away from my work to a police-station? What wrong have I done to any one?”
“None, I believe.”
“Surely I have a right to some explanation.”
“If you insist I am bound to answer.”
“Then I do insist,” and Winifred’s heightened color and wrathful eyes only enhanced her beauty. Clancy spread his hands in a gesture inherited from a French mother.
“Very well,” he said. “You are required to give evidence concerning the death of Mr. Ronald Tower. Now, I cannot say any more. I have a car outside. You will be detained less than an hour. The same car will bring you back, and I think I can guarantee that your employers will raise no difficulty.”
The head of the firm growled agreement. As a matter of fact the staid respectability of Brown, Son & Brown had sustained a shock by the mere presence of the police. Murder has an ugly aspect. It was often bound up in the firm’s products, but never before had it entered that temple of efficiency in other guise.
Clancy sensed the slow fermentation of the pharisaical mind.
“If I had known what sort of girl this was I would never have brought a policeman,” he muttered into the great man’s ear. “She has no more to do with this affair than you have.”
“It is very annoying – very,” was the peevish reply.
“What is? Assisting the police?”
“Oh, no. Didn’t mean that, of course.”
The detective thought he might do more harm than good by pressing for a definition of the firm’s annoyance. He turned to Winifred.
“Are you ready, Miss Bartlett?” he said. “The only reason the Bureau has for troubling you is the accident of your address.”
Almost before the girl realized the new and astounding conditions which had come into her life she was seated in a closed automobile and speeding swiftly down-town.
She was feminine enough, however, to ply Clancy with questions, and he had to fence with her, as it was all-important that such information as she might be able to give should be imparted when he and Steingall could observe her closely. The Bureau hugged no delusions. Its vast experience of the criminal world rendered misplaced sympathy with erring mortals almost impossible. Young or old, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, the strange procession which passes in unending review before the police authorities is subjected to impartial yet searching analysis. Few of the guilty ones escape suspicion, no matter how slight the connecting clue or scanty the evidence. On the other hand, Steingall and his trusty aid seldom made a mistake when they decided, as Clancy had already done in Winifred’s case, that real innocence had come under the shadow of crime.
Steingall shared Clancy’s opinion the instant he set eyes on the new witness. He gazed at her with a humorous dismay that was wholly genuine.
“Sit there, Miss Bartlett,” he said, rising to place a chair for her. “Please don’t feel nervous. I am sure you understand that only those who