“Well, Judge, a minute ago I brought a girl in here; picked her up at Fourteenth Street and Thoid Avenue for solicitin’. So far as that goes it’s a dead-open-and-shut case. She come up to me on the street and braced me. She wasn’t dressed like most of these Thoid-Avenue cruisers dress and she’s sort of acted as if she’d never been pinched before—tried to give me an argument on the way over. Well, that didn’t get her anywheres with me. You can’t never tell when one of them dames will turn out in a new make-up, but somethin’ that happened when we was right here outside the door—somethin’ I seen about her—sort of——” He broke off the sentence in the middle and started again. “Well, anyhow, Your Honour, I may be makin’ a sucker of myself, but I didn’t swear out no affidavit and I ain’t called up the station house even. I stuck her over there in the bull-pen and then I come straight to you.”
The magistrate’s eyes narrowed. Thus early in his experience as a police judge he had learned—and [84] with abundant cause—to distrust the motives of plain-clothes men grown suddenly philanthropic. Besides, in the first place, this night court was created to circumvent the unholy partnership of the bail-bond shark and the police pilot fish.
“Now look here, Schwartzmann,” he said sharply, “you know the law—you know the routine that has to be followed.”
“Yes, sir, I do,” agreed Schwartzmann; “and if I’ve made a break I’m willin’ to stand the gaff. Maybe I’m makin’ a sucker of myself, too, just like I said. But, Judge, there ain’t no great harm done yet. She’s there in that pen and you know she’s there and I know she’s there.”
“Well, what’s the favour you want to ask of me?” demanded His Honour.
“It’s like this: I want to slip over to the address she gave me and see if she’s been handin’ me the right steer about certain things. It ain’t so far.” He glanced down at the scribbled card he held in his hand. “I can get over there and get back in half an hour at the outside. And then if she’s been tryin’ to con me I’ll go through with it—I’ll press the charge all right.” His jaw locked grimly on the thought that his professional sagacity was on test.
“Well, what is her story?” asked the magistrate.
“Judge, to tell you the truth it ain’t her story so much as it’s somethin’ I seen. And if I’m [85] makin’ a sucker of myself I’d rather not say too much about that yet.”
“Oh, go ahead,” assented the magistrate, whose name was Voris. “There’s no danger of the case being called while you’re gone, because, as I understand you, there isn’t any case to call. Go ahead, but remember this while you’re gone—I don’t like all this mystery. I’m going to want to know all the facts before I’m done.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Schwartzmann, getting himself outside the railed inclosure. “I’ll be back in less’n no time, Your Honour.”