For a moment it seemed that his advice had been accepted. John Cabot turned and crossed to the rim of the stage. There he lifted his hand to the lingering society contingent.
“I have sent for the police,” he said. “They’ll be here any minute now. They have a habit, I’m told, of taking the names of eye-witnesses. Subpoenas generally arrive at elsewhere-essential moments, so I’d suggest that such of you as have any important engagements for the near future——”
He had said enough. The remaining “valued patrons” broke the leash of curiosity and hurried away after the example of the “thoroughbred” Mrs. Cabot. Be it added that they waited not for the elevator, nor counted the steps in the flight of their descent.
For diverse reasons, a group remained with John Cabot during his brief wait for the detectives of the nearby Tenderloin police station. The reporters stayed because of the “realer” crux of the story explaining the scream of a shopgirl; Mrs. Hutton because, as she had asserted, she dared not desert Seff; the owner himself because of the competent look of a golf-steeled right, swinging from an arm whose length and strength he knew.
The while, Seff gained considerable reassurance from a sotto voce consultation with his forewoman who, in the emergency, seemed to have reversed the usual relationship of employed to employer. He greeted the officers as though they had come at his request and asked that they search the store for the model. She, although the cause of the disturbance, would be needed, he declared, as his chief witness.
Upon the report that no trace of her could be found, he addressed himself to the financier with a noticeable cessation of resentment.
The girl was gone, he pointed. That fact was substantial evidence of her guilty intent toward himself. No real harm had been done and nothing would be gained by going through with his arrest on a charge that could not be proved. Certainly, with their combined influence, the unpleasant aftermath of what so many had voted a pleasant morning could be kept from the papers. Had Mr. Cabot no thought for the consequence of the use of his name in such a connection? Even though he cared nothing for his own reputation, did he not owe something to his family? Sentiment aside, with no complaining witness what could he gain to equal what he should lose by carrying out his threat?
“But there is a complainant,” John assured him pleasantly enough. “That rôle is mine.”
“You? Can you possibly intend——”
Mrs. Hutton it was who found voice for direct demand. “What is the charge? We have a right to know, sir.”