“I’ll see you don’t get into any trouble with the inspector,” he said. Then he added: “You know of course that this brother was a French soldier?”
“Sure I know it—you told me so.”
“You’re German, aren’t you?” asked Voris. “German descent, I mean?”
“I don’t figure as that’s got anythin’ to do with the case,” said the plain-clothes man, bristling.
“I don’t either, Schwartzmann,” said the magistrate. “Now you go ahead and get that woman out of this hole.”
Schwartzmann went. She was where he had left her; she was huddled up, shrinking in, against the bars, and as he unlatched the iron door and swung it in and beckoned to her to come out from behind it, he saw, as she came, that her eyes looked at him with a dumb, questioning misery and that her left hand was still gripped in a hard knot against her breast. He knew what that hand held. It held a little, cheap, carved white crucifix.
I see by the papers that those popularly reputed to be anointed of God, who are principally in charge of this war, are graciously pleased to ordain that the same shall go on for quite some time yet.
[91]
CHAPTER III
THE SMART ALECK
Cap’n Buck Fluter, holding his watch in the approved conductor’s grip, glanced back and forth the short length of the four-five accommodation and raised his free hand in warning: