"Hold on, Dod!" he said, seizing Mr. Bashford's legs in a grip of iron. "Hold on! I ain't sure about young Pippin, or whatever his name is, but I've no doubts about you, my man. You're wanted on several counts, and I don't doubt but your respectable son is too. Hold still! You don't want I should have to knock you out before the ladies, do you? I'm ashamed of you!"
Bashford struggled savagely, desperately, muttering curses under his breath. His son moved quietly to the window and investigated the firmness of the fly screen.
But now more footsteps were heard. Two men came running along the lane, into the yard, up the steps; stars shone, truncheons waved, handcuffs clinked. In two minutes all was over, and the Bashfords, relapsing instantly into the hunch, skulk, cringe of the habitual criminal, stood in apparent humility before the Force.
One of the newcomers, surveying the group, broke into a jovial laugh.
"Well done, Dennis Cassidy!" he cried. "Bully for you! Let's hear anyone say again that you go to sleep on your beat!"
[CHAPTER XIX]
A KNOT IN THE THREAD
IT was afternoon of the next day. Mary's kitchen was in its customary trim perfection, so far as Mary could make it so. She had scrubbed and polished all the morning, determined to remove every trace of the hateful doings of the night before. Such actions going on in her kitchen! Real bad folks there, and policemen, and all! Of course the room needed cleaning; it stood to reason. One trace, however, could not be scrubbed or polished away. It would need more than brush and mop to mend that plaster, cracked and starred where the savage blow had struck it. Mary, gazing at it over her broom, found herself suddenly sobbing, the tears running down her cheek.
"He would have been killed!" she murmured. "But for being so quick, he would have been killed. My soul! Oh, I thank the Lord for saving him. I do thank Him!"