By this time they were upstairs and at Allingham's door, for they had not done their talking standing still. Allingham produced his key. "We must get them both home tonight," he said, and opened the door.
"O, Bailey!" cried Gertrude, coming forward impulsively. "I'm so glad you've come."
And then Bailey answered, "O, Gertie," and throwing his arms around her, kissed her affectionately on the brow. "O, Gertie, where have you been? And where is Mary?"
"And how did you get here?" Allingham wanted to ask this question, but the sight of that kiss had seemed to paralyze him. It was Bailey, then, who had won her love—Bailey, on whom life showered every blessing, whom all women loved, whom everybody admired. And he—what a fool he was!
So he only went to the telephone and called up the private residence of the chief of police.
"Got in? I was afraid you'd gone to bed," he said. "Well, Miss Van Deusen is in this office—what? Yes—I say, Miss Van Deusen is here. Yes, in my office. How? I don't know myself yet. But we must get Miss Snow at once. Come up quick. Can you get your men? Yes, all right. We'll wait for you. Good-by."
"Hurry up, Jack," said Bailey. "Gertie's story's waiting for you. Now, old girl, go ahead."
"Nice, respectful way to address your mayor," laughed Gertrude, to whom the world had suddenly become a broader and brighter place than ever. "Well, then here goes."
She began at the beginning of her story and told how she and Mary Snow had set out for Newton Fitzgerald's sick bed; how they had been trapped, and how the days had dragged in the flat.
"We wrote a score of notes on leaves torn from Mary's diary," she went on, "and tucked them out of the top of the window and under the bottom of the door. But nothing ever came of them."