Involuntarily my hand went out to it. It was a perfectly unconscious action on my part, and I blushed vividly when I realised what I had done. I had no authority here. I was not even known to the good man and woman before me.
The Captain, who may or may not have noted my anxiety, paid no heed either to my unfortunate self-committal or to the apologetic question with which I endeavoured to retrieve myself.
Turning to the lass beside him, he handed her the slip, with the look which a man gives to a woman on whose good sense and judgment he has come to rely.
"Take it, Sally," he said. "You will know the girl if she comes in, and, what's more, you'll know how to manage the matter so as to give satisfaction to all the parties concerned. And now, sir?—" he inquired, turning towards me.
But at this instant a diversion was created by the arrival of Detective Sweetwater, a man for whose presence I was certainly little prepared.
"The gentleman who has just gone out passed you something," he cried, approaching the lass without ceremony, though not without respect. Me he did not appear to see.
"The gentleman left a note with us for one of the poor women who sometimes straggle in here," was her quiet response. "He is interested in poor girls; tries to reclaim them."
"I am sorry," protested the detective "but I must have a glance at what he wrote. It may be of immediate importance to the police. Here is my authority," he added in lower tones, opening his coat for a moment. "You know under what suspicion the Gillespie family lies. He is a Gillespie; let me see those lines—or, stay, read them out yourself—that may be better."
The young woman hesitated, consulted the Captain with a look, then glanced down at the slip trembling in her hand. It was half unrolled, and some of its words must have met her eye.
"Why do you think this has anything to do with the serious matter you mention?" she ventured to ask.