“How’s that, sir?” asked Schwartzmann. “I didn’t quite get you.” He had taken the two papers back in his own hands and was shuffling them absently.
“Nothing,” said the magistrate. And then almost harshly: “Well, what do you want me to do about the woman in the pen yonder?”
“Well, sir,” said the other slowly, “I was thinkin’ that probably you wouldn’t care to tell her what’s just come off in the flat—at least not in court. And I know I don’t want to [89] have to tell her. I thought maybe if you could stretch the rules so’s I could get her out of here without havin’ to make a regular charge against her and without me havin’ to arraign her in the regular way——”
“Damn the rules!” snapped Voris petulantly. “I’ll fix them. You needn’t worry about that part of it. Go on!”
“Well, sir, I was thinkin’ maybe that after I found somebody to take these letters back where they belong, I could take her on home with me—I live right down here in Greenwich Village—and keep her there for the night, or anyhow till the coroner’s physician is through with what he’s got to do, and I’d ask my wife to break the news to her and tell her about it. A woman can do them things sometimes better’n a man can. So that’s my idea, sir.”
“You’re willing to take a woman into your home that you picked up for streetwalking?”
“I’ll take the chance. You see, Your Honour, I seen somethin’ else—somethin’ I ain’t mentioned—somethin’ I don’t care to mention if you don’t mind.”
“Suit yourself,” said the other. “I suppose you’ll be looking up the newspaper men before you go. This will make what they call a great heart-interest story.”
“I don’t figure on tellin’ the reporters neither,” mumbled Schwartzmann, as though ashamed of his own forbearance.
The magistrate found the detective’s right [90] hand and started to shake it. Then he dropped it. You might have thought from the haste with which he dropped it that he also was ashamed.