“Heavens, Sir!” he cried, “why, what are you saying! Who are you?”
Leslie threw back his coat, displaying his diamond-studded shield.
“Chief of Police Leslie of San Francisco,” He said, shortly.
With a swift movement the girl’s hand went to her corsage and in a flash Lanagan had hurtled across the room and a tiny dagger spun to the floor. She threw herself back upon the bed, crying in sudden hysteria:
“You might have let me done it! You might have let me done it!” she wailed bitterly. Lanagan was wrapping up his hand. He had got the point of the dagger through the ball of his thumb in the rush. She jumped up again and threw herself at the feet of Leslie.
“It’s my first crooked trick, so help me, Chief! He dragged me into it! What was I to do? It looked easy and it was a way out of the Tenderloin!”
Leighton was glancing heavily, his lips apart, from the door to the window as though planning an attempt to escape by either means.
“You’ve been shading pretty close on one or two things lately, Leighton,” said the Chief grimly. “But I didn’t think you had it in you to take a chance at the scaffold.”
“What do you mean by that, Chief?” gasped Leighton, with a sickly attempt at composure.
“He means,” thundered Lanagan, “that you are the man back of the murder of the real Gertrude Pendelton’s child, and the indirect killing of Gertrude Pendelton, who was Mrs. Peters! He means that you are the man back of Fogarty, who is the man who secured the conviction, in Bannerman’s court, of Peters. That’s what he means!”