Ruth shook her head, smiling at the boy's amazement. There was a subtle sympathy between these two that surprised me, for Ruth Schuyler was fastidious in her choice of friends. But he amused her, and he was never really impertinent—merely naive and unconventional.
Well, on the day I speak of, Stone and I sat in the basement room awaiting Fibsy's return. He was out after certain information and we hoped much from it.
"I gotta bunch o' dope," he announced, as he suddenly appeared before us. "Dunno 's it'll pan out much, but listen 'n' I'll spill a earful."
I had learned that Fibsy, or Terence, as we ought to call him, was trying to discard his street slang, and was succeeding fairly well, save in moments of great excitement or importance. And so, I hoped from his slangy beginning, that he had found some fresh data.
"I chased up that chore boy first," he related, "an' he didn't know anything at all. Said Miss Van Allen's a lovely lady, but he 'most never saw her, the Julie dame did all the orderin' an' payin' s'far's he was concerned. Good pay, but irregular work. She'd be here a day or two, an' then like's not go 'way for a week. Well, we knew that before. Then, next, I tracked to his lair the furnace man. Same story. Here to-day an' gone to-morrer, as the song says. 'Course, he ain't only a stoker, he's really an odd job man—ashes, sidewalks, an' such. Well, he didn't help none—any, I mean. But," and the shock of red hair seemed to bristle with triumph, "I loined one thing! That Julie has been to the sewing woman and the laundress lady and shut 'em up! Yes, sir! that's what she's done!"
"Tell it all," said Stone, briefly.
"Well, I struck the seamstress first. She wouldn't tell a thing, and I said, calmly, 'I know Julie paid you to keep your mouth shut, but if you don't tell, the law'll make you!' That scared her, and she owned up that Julie was to see her 'bout a week ago and give her fifty dollars not to tell anything at all whatsomever about Miss Van Allen! Some girl, that Vicky Van!"
"Julie went there herself!" I cried.
"Yep. The real Julie, gold teeth and all. But I quizzed the needle pusher good and plenty, and she don't know much of evidential value."
It was always funny when Fibsy interlarded his talk with legal phrases, but he was unconscious of any incongruity and went on: