“Ever heard of him?”
“No, sir.”
“Thank you, that will be all. Cross-examine.”
“No questions,” said Mr. Farr indifferently, and the small, unhappy shadow that had been Adolph Platz’s wife was gone.
“Well,” said the reporter judicially to the red-headed girl, “you have to grant him one thing. He knows when to leave bad enough alone.”
“Call Mrs. Shea.”
“Mrs. Timothy Shea!”
Mrs. Timothy Shea advanced belligerently toward the witness box, her forbidding countenance inappropriately decorated with a large lace turban enhanced with obese violets and a jet butterfly. She seated herself solidly, thumped a black beaded bag on to the rail before her and breathed audibly through an impressive nose.
“Mrs. Shea, what is your occupation?”
“I keep a boarding house in Atlantic City—known far and wide as the decentest in that place or in any other, as well as the most genteel and the best table.”