“You are.”
“What business could you have had to take you into a court of law?”
“There was a poor woman living in the house where I one time had a room, whose husband took part in a street fight. He was passing when a couple of men began to fight. He tried to separate them, and they set upon him for interfering, and then while he was defending himself a policeman came up, and arresting him, took him to the station house. The poor woman heard of it and was beside herself with grief, and as she was on a sick bed at the time, I lost a day to go to the court and try to get his freedom. And, sir, it made my blood boil, the way the judge mocked and laughed and jeered the poor wretches who were brought before him.”
As she said this her checks glowed with natural indignation.
Nick Carter could not say it was affected!
He left her presently, convinced against his reason that she was not the guilty thing he had painted her in his mind.
Cold-blooded judgment was against her! Dumb evidence pointed directly at her! But some finer sense told him it could not possibly be that this girl was guilty.
Leaving the house for the second time that day and going downtown, his ears were assailed by the cries of the newsboys, who were selling extra editions based on the strange crime—murder or abduction.
He went to the last place of residence given him by the girl.
Ringing the bell, he inquired for the landlady.