CHAPTER XI.
BERT JACKSON TO THE RESCUE.
The tragedy of the “vitriol patient’s” death was almost a tragedy of two cities—the great city of New York, where crime is conceived and fostered and the smaller city on Blackwell’s Island, where crime is punished and ended.
A few hours after that sad death in the Prison Hospital, the lawyer, Augustus Atherton, stood on the steps of his office waiting for his typewriter, Dollie Marlowe, to join him.
As he stood there waiting he twisted his gray mustache idly. His hands were neatly gloved and his attire stylish and spotless.
“Not a bad looking chap for fifty,” said a man who was passing, “and do you know, Dare, he is a great masher—a regular sport with the ladies.”
“I have heard that his wife left him years ago,” was the low answer, “and that his daughter, the one that married young Ray while he was in college, was quick in striking the old man’s pace and kept it up until she went plumb to the devil.”
“Where is she now?” asked the first speaker, glancing back to see if the lawyer was still waiting.
“The last I heard she was seen fighting on the street. I believe her husband or some friend of his happened to see her, and for the sake of the family kept the thing quiet.”
As the two men passed on, Dollie Marlowe came tripping down the steps. She was dressed in a natty blue cloth suit and looked more bewitching than ever.
“You are sure I will get home early?” she said to the lawyer, plaintively.