“No. She was alone.”
“How close were you?”
“I was rather close,” she admitted, “just up on the porch of that other house. But you know how it is when you’re working. You have so many calls to make and such a limited time within which to make them. You don’t dare to start too early or you break in on a family right after dinner, usually with the woman of the house doing dishes in the kitchen. Then after it gets just so late, you feel rather conspicuous, even when you know people are still up. Lots of times the ringing of a doorbell will waken a child, and that makes for a bad reception. So there’s only a relatively short period of time in which you have to work.”
The officer looked at his watch. “Pretty late now, isn’t it?”
She nodded, bit her lip, lowered her eyes, and said in a halting voice, “But I had some emergencies — my kid sister — well, I just needed the extra money. I get paid so much a subscription, you see.”
The officer said, “Okay, Miss Garland. Come on, Jack, let’s take a run down the car track and see if we can’t pick up this moll. Not that we’ve got anything against her. You’re sure she wasn’t prowling around up here on the porch?”
Della Street grew thoughtful. “She just came up here for a few moments. I somehow had the impression that she might be just trying to avoid meeting the man who was walking along the street. That’s why I noticed him more than I did her. You know how it is. Unescorted girls who have work which keeps them out in the evening quite frequently have — oh, well, you know.”
“Guys make passes at you?” the officer asked, grinning.
“Uh huh,” Della said casually. “I don’t mind a nice clean pass at times, but it’s this street-mashing, smirking pick-up stuff that gets you. And then you never know when someone may get really violent. You get fed up on it after a while.”
The officers exchanged glances. “Well, we’ll be on our way. We’ll pick her up, and give her a shakedown. One thing’s certain, she can’t fool us if we once nab her. She talks tough... So you’re Lieutenant Tragg’s brother. Well, well. I didn’t know he had a brother here in San Francisco. He didn’t say anything about it.”