"Those were his words," Mrs. Hatch answered. "'Who'll that be?' asks Jim. 'Never mind who it'll be,' says Cummings, 'you'll find that out when it happens. Now, I'm giving you your last chance, either come across or go back and do your bit; what's it going to be?'
"I know Jim. I know he would rather have died than to have given in to Cummings. 'Nothing doing, "Gink,"' Jim says. 'All right, Jim,' says Cummings, 'don't ever say I didn't give you a chance.' Then he left.
"I was afraid. I begged Jim to split with Cummings and make the most of it. But he was stubborn. 'I'd rather go to the pen than split with that cur,' he says to me. So nothing more happened until today and you were here and saw it.
"Now, this is how I think you may be able to help us. You saw who it was who arrested Jim. It was Gibson, the police commissioner, who is running for mayor. Gibson must have been the man Cummings referred to when he said that it would be somebody bigger than a cop who would arrest Jim. Gibson could never have known anything about Jim unless Cummings told him. Gibson and Cummings must be working together, somehow. The only reason Jim was arrested was because he wouldn't split with Cummings and it's Gibson who arrests him. Can't you see the connection?
"Jim can tell you every word I've told you and a lot more and there should be some way of using it to aid him. I don't know how, but there should be some way. If he told everything to the district attorney here, don't you think it might help him a little? You see, Cummings wants him sent back to New York as soon as possible so he won't start talking. He won't say anything about what Jim has done here because he wants him out of the state.
"I thought that if Jim would tell his story to the district attorney or to some newspaper it might be arranged to have some recommendation for leniency for him when he goes back to New York. Or, he might be able to have the charge back there dropped and get immunity out here."
She paused. There was a tense silence until she spoke again, softly.
"You see," she said, "I love Jim and he loves me. We had decided, after this experience with Cummings, to go straight. Jim told me that he would work the rest of his life to pay back whatever he had taken wrongfully and we would be happy together. We wouldn't have to live in fear and the day would come when we could hold up our heads and have a little home and—and—children."
John thought he saw tears in her eyes as she ended the sentence.
"I have trusted you in telling you this," she said. "I feel that I can trust you. Tell me, please tell me, can anything be done with what I've told you?"