"He was a police sergeant then, and I was bookkeeping for the time for Metz Producing Company. Lon used to drop in once in a while for passes. Then he got to waiting for me evenings with little pencil drawings of all the funny things that had happened to him during the day. I was strong for him to get off the force and take up art, but even then, now that I look back on it, I can see that Lon was fed up on propositions that it was driving him half mad to resist. That in itself should have put me on my guard, but it didn't. I don't know why I'm telling you all this—"
"Go on."
"Oh, I must have known in a way that Lon was drinking in his effort to keep his eyes shut to the bribe money that could have come his way. He never came home to me under the influence, but toward—the end—his eyes began to glassen up. I was all for getting his beat changed. You see, it took him down into the gang and red-light districts. More than that, I had my heart set on seeing him off the force altogether. I wanted to keep my position for a year or two after we were married and send him to Paris to study art. I've some cartoons in my trunk. That boy would have made good as—Well, it didn't happen. I blame myself. Marriage made a great baby of me, Lilly. You see, I'd never been coddled in my life—all those years of struggle on my own. Well I just turned soft and he loved to baby me. Why, when I went back to bookkeeping I had to learn it all over like a beginner—that's how wrapped up I became in that little home of ours!"
"How long, Mrs. Blair, did you live in it?"
"Fourteen months and five days. It was a tiny place and we didn't have much to spend at first, but what I had I managed to good advantage. Lon hated makeshift. He couldn't get the fun out of simplicity that I could. He wanted to dress me up. He wanted a big house. Big. Everything big. That was his undoing. That's what they called him in the Ring, I learned later, 'Gentleman Lon.' And I never knew there was a Ring! Never knew the filthy inside workings of the graft game existed. That's the way he protected me from everything ugly—from poverty. Me, that had never been protected from either. O God! if he'd only been truthful with me those last few months. I—I can't talk about it—I—"
"Then don't, dear Mrs. Blair, I didn't mean to—"
"He began bringing home more money than was natural, but he always explained it—a tip from a bucket shop on his beat—extra duty. If I had been right strong those days I might have suspected. Once he walked the floor all night, said it was a toothache, my poor boy! and let me fix a hot-water bottle for him. Then two men came one evening and there was some loud talk down in the parlor and I heard words like 'squeal' and 'gangsters.' He told me when he came upstairs that one of them was Eckstein. But how was I to know who Eckstein was? Didn't, until I heard it was he who had been—shot. I—You see, the captain had closed in on Eckstein's place because of a personal grudge, and Eckstein came running to Lon to save him. Threatened to squeal on Lon—on the whole business—if he didn't. Lon was hot-headed—got frightened—lost his head. O God! I don't know what—never will know—"
"Know—what?"
"That evening he stayed home and helped me fix up the nursery. Yes, I was expecting in the spring. That's why he was so for keeping things from me. We painted the woodwork white and gave a couple of coats to a little brown crib I had picked up second hand. He was for buying an enameled one on casters—he loved the best. Next night—next night—he—didn't come home—and at eight o'clock the following morning the extras were on the street—about the killing. Even then I didn't tie up—Lon and Eckstein. O God! God! how could I—"
"Tie up what? Who?"