"Why, to you," said Randall. "I thought that all you old gentlemen with dyed whiskers and toupées did your work in the pleasant months." He half-wheeled and pointed west. "Know what's over that way? I'll tell you—Jefferson Market. And the least that they give a masher is ten days on the Island. That is, after he gets out of the hospital." He paused, stared at Spofford a moment, then added "It's your move."
Spofford's red face bore a deeper color. But he met Randall's stare calmly. Slowly he turned back the lapel of his jacket, affording a glimpse of a nickel badge.
"Take a slant at that, friend," he advised. "I ain't mashin'; I'm 'tendin' to my business. Suppose," he finished truculently, "you 'tend to yours."
Clancy, hanging on Randall's arm, felt his biceps tighten. But her precarious position would not be improved by an attack upon Spofford. She made her gripping fingers dig deeper. She felt the biceps soften.
Then, as she waited for Spofford to announce that she was under arrest, the blue-coated man with the outthrust lower lip moved aside. She gave Randall no time for digestion of the queer situation. Her fingers now impelled him forward, and in a moment they were in the hall of Mrs. Gerand's lodging-house.
She left him there while she went up-stairs. Clancy would have stopped the procession to the death-house to powder her nose. And why not? Men light a cigarette; women arrange their hair. Either act, calling for a certain concentration, settles the nerves.
But Clancy's nerves were not to be settled this morning. Even though Spofford had not arrested her, his presence with the elevator-man from the Heberworth Building meant only one thing. He had not believed her explanation of her visit to Philip Vandervent's office, and, acting upon that disbelief, had produced, for purposes of identification, a man who had seen Beiner's mysterious woman visitor last Tuesday afternoon. Arrest was a mere matter of time, Clancy supposed.
Panicky, she peeped through the window, flattening her nose against the pane. Outside, across the street now, was Spofford. She was quite certain that his roving eyes sought her out, found her, and that his mean mouth opened in an exultant laugh.
She shrugged—the hopeless shrug of the condemned. She could only wait. Flight was useless. If Spofford suspected flight, he would not hesitate, she felt, to arrest her. She could visualize what had happened since she had entered the house. Spofford had told his witness to telephone for instructions. She knew vaguely that warrants were necessary, that certain informations and beliefs must be sworn to. How soon before a uniformed man— She almost ran down-stairs to Randall.
He was not in the hall, but she found him in the parlor. He was sitting down, his wide shoulders hunched together, his forehead frowning. She knew that he was thinking of the man outside, the man with the truculent lower lip, who wore a detective's shield pinned inside his coat lapel. Somehow, although, he had been willing to strike a blow for her a few minutes ago, it seemed to her that he had lost his combativeness, that the eyes which he lifted to her were uneasy.