"That is, if it'll lock," he added, and held out his hand to Miss
Gregory.
"Good-bye," she said, taking it heartily. "I'm glad to hear of your good fortune."
He gulped and left her, walking forth through the little tables with the uncanny straightness of the man "in liquor." Miss Gregory drank up her coffee and sat where she was.
She could see the men at the next table out of the corner of her eye; their heads were together, and they were whispering excitedly. The whole affair was plain enough to a veteran of the world's byways like Miss Gregory; the plan had been to make the youth drunk, help him forth, and rob him easily in some convenient corner. He was the kind of man who lends himself to being robbed; the real wonder was that it had not been done already. But, mingled with her contempt for his helplessness, Miss Gregory felt a certain softening. His homing instinct, as blind as that of a domestic animal, his rejoicing in his return, his childish plan for taking his mother by surprise, even his loyalty to the tramcars and all the busy littleness of Clapham Junction—these touched something in her akin to the goodness of motherhood. It occurred to her that perhaps he had been better off under the lights of the cafe than alone on his way to his bed; and at that moment the three men at the next table, their conference over, rose and went out. She sat still till they were clear; then, on an impulse of officiousness, got up and went out after them.
Their white clothes shone in the darkness to guide her; they cut across the square and vanished in one of those dark alleys she had already remarked. Miss Gregory straightened her felt hat, took a fresh grip of the stout umbrella, and followed determinedly. The corner of the alley shut out the lights behind her; tall walls with scarce windows fast shuttered hemmed her in; the vast night of the tropics drooped its shadow over her. Through it all she plodded at the gait familiar to many varieties of men from Poughkeepsie to Pekin, a squat, resolute figure, reckless alike of risk and ridicule, an unheroic heroine. There reached her from time to time the noises that prevail in those places—noises filtering thinly through shutters, the pad of footsteps, and once—it seemed to come from some roof invisible above her—the sound of sobbing, abandoned, strangled, heart-shaking sobs. She frowned and went on.
A spot where the way forked made her hesitate; the men she was following were no longer in sight. But as she pondered there came to guide her a sudden cry, clear and poignant, the shout of a startled man. It was from the right-hand path, and promptly, as though on a summons, she bent her grey head and broke into a run in the direction of it. As she ran, pounding valiantly, she groped in her pocket for a dog-whistle she had with her; she took it in her lips, and, never ceasing to run, blew shrill call upon call. Her umbrella was poised for war, but, rounding a corner, she saw that her whistling had done its work; three white jackets were making off at top-speed. It takes little to alarm a thief; Miss Gregory had counted on that.
It was not till she fell over him that she was aware of the man on the ground, who rolled over and cried out at the movement. She put a steady hand on him.
"Are you hurt?" she asked eagerly.
He groaned; his face was a pale blur against the earth.
"They've got me," he said. "They stuck a knife in my back. I'm bleeding; I'm bleeding."