“What is the name of the man in whose house you met Allen?”
“Crumb.”
The man raised his heavy brows.
“How long since you been there—in that house in Hollywood?”
“Not since the last of July. I left the house the same time Allen did.”
“You know how Allen he get in jail?” the Mexican asked.
The girl saw that a new suspicion had been aroused in the man, and she judged that the safer plan was to be perfectly frank.
“I do not know, for I have seen neither Crumb nor Allen since; but when I read in the paper that he had been arrested that night, I guessed that Crumb had done it. I heard Crumb ask him to deliver some snow to a man in Hollywood. I know that Crumb is a bad man, and that he was trying to steal your share of the money from Allen.”
The man thought in silence for several minutes, the lines of his heavy face evidencing the travail with which some new idea was being born. Presently he looked up, the light of cunning gleaming in his evil eyes.
“You go now,” he said. “I know you! Allen tell me about you a long time ago. You Crumb’s woman, and your name is Gaza. You will not tell anything about us to your rich friends the Penningtons—you bet you won’t!”