“Not having a matron here to search you, I’ll have to take your say-so.” The sergeant, after a meditative tug at his gray mustache, waved her back.
Pape was pedigreed with scant ceremony and his answers recorded as he gave them, even to “Hotel Astor, residence.”
“Frisk him, Pudge!” was the concluding order.
Because Jane’s automatic was first found and placed upon the desk the more personal “hardware,” a 45 Colt snugly fitted into its arm-pit holster, was almost overlooked. The sparrow cop’s triumph on drawing it forth was weighty as his figure.
“You go right well heeled for a guest of the hoity-toity,” remarked the sergeant, also pleasurably excited. “We’ll just book you for a double felony under the Sullivan law.”
At the threat, “mother” took a step toward her companion, evidently appreciating that this last charge was due to the service rendered in fore-disarming without fore-warning her. She looked ready to confess her ownership of the black gun, as she was trying to get the sergeant’s attention around the interposed bulk of Pudge O’Shay. But she paused when she saw Pape hand a yellow pig-skin card-case to the officer.
“Before you ’phone your friend Welch the glad news that you’ve got a double-barreled Sullivan on me,” he requested, “calm yourself by a look at this.”
The sergeant obliged; aloud read sketchily from the filled-in courtesy card signed by his chief, the commissioner of police.
“Peter S. Pape, deputy sheriff, Snowshoe County, Montana. Permitted to carry arms while in pursuit of fugitives from justice.”
His pleased expression faded; rather, appeared to pass from his face to that of the prisoner. And indeed, Pape felt that he had reason to be pleased. Only that week, in preparation for any trail’s-end contretemps, he had taken the precaution of presenting at Police Headquarters his credentials from the home county sheriff. Sooner than expected, if somewhat otherwise, preparedness had won.